Copyright

Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Vol. 1

Hiro Ainana

Translation by Jenny McKeon

Cover art by shri

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are theproduct of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance toactual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

© Hiro Ainana, shri 2014

First published in Japan in 2014 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyothrough Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

English translation © 2017 by Yen Press, LLC

Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright.The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce thecreative works that enrich our culture.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is atheft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to usematerial from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact thepublisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ainana, Hiro,author. | Shri, illustrator. | McKeon, Jenny, translator.

Title: Death march to the parallel world rhapsody / Hiro Ainana ; illustrationsby shri ; translation by Jenny McKeon.

Other titles: Desu machi kara hajimaru isekai kyosokyoku. English Description:First Yen On edition. | New York, NY : Yen ON, 2017– Identifiers: LCCN2016050512 | ISBN 9780316504638 (v. 1 : pbk.) Subjects: | GSAFD: Fantasyfiction.

Classification: LCC PL867.5.I56 D413 2017 | DDC 895.6/36d—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016050512

ISBNs: 978-0-31650463-8 (paperback) 978-0-316-55613-2 (ebook)

E3-20170107-JV-PC

PROLOGUE Death March to Disaster

Stars streak across the sky.

Dozens and dozens of them.

Have you ever seen a shooting star?

I’m sure many people have. Maybe you’ve been captivated by their fleetingbeauty or made a wish on one as it fell through the night sky.

But have you ever watched a meteorite rip through the heavens toward thesurface? Have you seen it tear the sky to pieces with a thunderous roar, crashinginto the ground with a terrifying impact?

Maybe some of you have seen something like it on TV or on the Internetsomewhere. But even then, I’m sure nobody ever thought they wanted to see ameteor shower up close, hurtling down all around them.

And yet, at this very moment, I’m watching more than a hundred falling rockspour down right before my eyes, one after the other.

No—I shouldn’t say it so passively, as if it’s someone else’s problem. BecauseI’m the one responsible for this disaster in the first place.

Because of a choice I thoughtlessly made just ten minutes ago, a meteorshower is gouging out the ground. The meteorites make landfall everywhere,from a few hundred feet away from me to the enormous canyon in the distance,crushing all the enemies within that large radius.

The dots on the radar in the corner of my field of vision disappear like abothersome stain being washed away. I can’t see it from here, but most likely,countless lives are being snuffed out at each meteorite’s point of impact.

And shortly after each one disappears into the earth, I hear the sound of theimpact and feel a tremor under my feet. And then, just as a massive tidal wave of

debris is about to reach me—

Suddenly, a searing pain hits me like the wrath of God. It’s as if my skull isbreaking open and my body is splitting apart.

As the pain stops, my body is lost in the dust cloud.

Let me rewind a bit.

I was working overtime on a day off in a last-ditch effort to get a long-overdueproject completed in time for its final deadline. As a programmer for asubcontracting company, I work on outsourced projects like PC and smartphonegames that are commissioned by larger companies.

However shady our company might be, one person never has more than twoprojects at a time. But because of too many last-minute changes and bugs, theyounger programmer assigned to this game had gone AWOL right before it wasdue! What a loser!

In fact, the job turnover rate here was so high, Junior and I had been the onlytwo programmers in the entire company. Since there was no time to find a last-minute replacement, I got stuck finishing up his projects in addition to my own.

“All right—entry of all classes’ input/output and comments, complete. Now Ijust need to let the auto-documenter prep the docs from the source code anddraw up a correlation diagram, and then I can get down to some seriousdebugging.”

I stretched a little, cracking my neck. Looking around, it seemed like all handswere on deck—you never would have guessed it was a holiday. Unfortunately,this was par for the course at my workplace.

At the next desk over, the supervisor for debug commissions was grumbling ashe worked, but nobody paid him any mind. Who had the time? The gamedesigners and planners nearby worked alone in silence, all with the same dead,vacant eyes.

By the time I had made coffee and returned to my desk, my PC had finished itsprocesses, and the data needed for debugging was complete. Without this data,it was no wonder my former coworker had done such a terrible job. I guess it’s

pointless to complain about Junior when they tossed him into the fray withoutany on-the-job training, huh? There were four programmers working here onlyhalf a year ago when he started, and now there’s just me, so I think that saysmore about this company than anything…

“Mr. Sa… Er, Mr. Suzuki—the client is complaining that WW is too hard forbeginners and asking us to fix it… What should we do?” I looked over myshoulder to see Mr. Tubs, the director and lead designer, looking at me helplessly—as always.

I heard you start to call me Satou, pal. Can’t you at least get my name right?I’ve been on the team for over six months! And why do you look sort of happyabout even more problems? I don’t get why so many developers are masochists.

WW is short for War World, a PC browser game we’ve been developing inearnest for some time. It’s a strategy game with some social media elements, setin a fantasy world.

“Didn’t I tell them that if we make it any easier, their target demographicwon’t play it…?” We’d spent countless meetings with the client deciding on thisdifficulty level. I guess all those pointless meetings really were, well, pointless.Great.

“Well, they shot this down before, but what if we added a bonus featurewhere new players get the ability to find all the enemies on the map, plus athree-use-only bomb spell that can wipe them out? We could give them anextra-special title or something if they get through without using it, so the more-skilled gamers can have an incentive not to activate it.”

“We don’t have much time, so let’s go with that. Set it up, would you please,Suzuki?” Mr. Tubs was as carefree with his requests as ever.

“Wait a minute. I’m working on debugging the smartphone MMO right now,so can you get the okay from the client first? If we just stick it in there withoutasking, we won’t have time to change it later if they don’t like it.”

“All righty, I’ll call them right away!” Mr. Tubs waddled away into the smokingarea, cell phone in hand.

I resumed my work, grumbling to myself all the while. Before long, Mr. Tubs

gave me the thumbs-up, and it got later and later as I continued working, stavingoff my hunger with junk food.

Correcting the countless mistakes in Junior’s work would take up most of thenight before I could finally leave the rest to the debugging team.

What was the name of that game again? Since we always referred to it as“the MMO” or “that RPG,” I had forgotten its actual title.

…Oh, right—“Freedom Fantasy World.” I guess we’d avoided calling it thatbecause it was confusingly similar to WW’s old title, Fantasy War World. But Idid remember that the old spec documents were always labeled FFW and so on.Eventually, they took the Fantasy out of WW’s title, and the RPG’s name, whichhad apparently been temporary, was switched to Freedom Fantasy Life, with FFLas the new abbreviation. So there was no longer any real cause for confusion,but by then it was already too late.

“Suzuki, we’ve got a bug report from the group checking Storage.”

“What is it this time? If it’s about the infinite free items, I already took care ofit.”

“No, that was a problem with the inventory in FFL. This time it’s an itemduplication bug in WW, they said. Could you take a look at the attachment wesent you?”

“Okay. Damn, duplication bugs are always tough to get rid of…”

Ugh. Working on two projects at once is so complicated. By the way,“Storage” doesn’t refer to any external storage or hard drives—it’s the name ofWW’s inventory system.

I continued my work correcting errors in WW, dealing with each bug report asit came in from the debug team. At some point in the process, Mr. Tubs sent ane-mail asking me to remove the capacity limitations from WW’s Storage for thebeta test.

He e-mailed because he doesn’t want me to yell at him in person, the bastard.I’m definitely gonna make him buy me dinner or something after all this.

The FFL debug team needed to check some limitations, too, and asked me to

temporarily deactivate the level restrictions. Shouldn’t that be the servergroup’s job? I cursed them out under my breath as I worked. Man, this is goingto be another all-nighter, isn’t it?

The error correction continued well into the morning until, miraculously, wewere finally able to deliver the FFL app to the client. It definitely wasn’t bug-free,but fortunately, an advantage of online distribution is the ultimate last-resortweapon known as the “update patch.” I could almost hear the users booing mefor thinking it, but I was too tired to care.

I made my corrections to the other team’s work for WW and sent the programfile to Mr. Tubs via intercompany mail. After thirty hours without sleep, it wastime for a well-earned nap in the peaceful area underneath my desk.

Go ahead and laugh at this corporate slave. Right now, sleep is justice!

Have you ever heard of lucid dreaming?

It’s when you’re dreaming, but you’re aware you’re dreaming.

Right then, I was in a desert wasteland.

Yes, a wasteland. If you can picture the Grand Canyon, that should give you anidea.

How did I know this was a dream? For one thing, I remembered falling asleepunder my desk just a few moments ago. For another, there were the four iconsin the bottom-right corner of my field of vision along with the gadget labeledMenu and the radar display in the top right. It was the interface from WW, thegame I had been working on not long ago.

However! This wasn’t the first time I’d taken a nap during a death march andfound myself working even in my dreams. That I was doing it in a desert insteadof the office or my room was a little weird, but it was probably just because theroom I was sleeping in was really dry or something.

The scent of the parched earth tickled my nose. A dream where I could smellthings… That was unusual. Through a little trial and error, I figured out that Icould open the menu just by thinking about it. To my amusement, some kind ofbug prevented me from actually touching it with my hand. Luckily, I could

operate it with my mind, too.

The menu items seemed to be a mix of FFL and WW, but I guess you couldn’texactly expect dreams to be consistent. My character name was Satou, as usual.People often call me that by mistake, so it’s what I generally name my testcharacters. My status and such were standard for a new level 1 character, andmy equipment consisted of the protein bar, wallet, cell phone, and other thingsI’d had on me when I fell asleep.

Typical half-assed dream logic.

As I surveyed my surroundings, I saw one area where the ground cut offcompletely. Figuring it was a cliff or something, I headed toward it.

Clearly, I was pretty high up: I was standing on the edge of a steep drop-offthat went down at least three hundred feet. Similar pillars of high land rose upfrom all over the wasteland. At the bottom, the same reddish-brown earthstretched as far as the eye could see.

In the distance, I could see some kind of rift, possibly a canyon. I tried to checkit on the map, but everything outside my immediate area was blank. Assumingthis dream had a “fog of war” system like WW did, I would only be able to seeareas I’d explored. A label in the upper left said Valley of Dragons, so maybethat’s what the rift was? I squinted as best I could, but I didn’t see anything thatlooked like a dragon.

Instead, I saw something very different.

It was emerging from the shadows of the nearest cliff, kicking up a cloud ofdust as it came. Like a cavalry charge in a fantasy film.

My eyes instinctively fell on the four icons in the bottom-right corner of myvision: one that read Search Entire Map and three that read Meteor Shower.The emergency skills for beginners that I’d come up with after the meeting withMr. Tubs. Driven by a vague sense of unease, I selected the Search Entire Mapicon.

The radar automatically located any enemies, and a cluster of red dotsconfirmed the approaching group was hostile. Since the radar’s scope was

limited, I opened up the bigger map to check their configuration.

The advancing army was a group of high-level enemies. There were so many ofthem, the map’s entire upper half was flooded with red.

…Isn’t this…a bit over the top? There’s way too many.

The approaching band was labeled Elite Lizardmen. There were around threehundred of them, most about level 50. An unarmed level 1 player like medefinitely wouldn’t stand a chance.

When the group was less than two thousand feet from the cliff, their marchingsuddenly halted. I ducked behind a rock, out of sight, and peered out at them.

They seemed like some kind of mounted army, but it was no ordinary cavalry. Icould tell their mounts weren’t horses, but the dust obscured my view tooheavily to determine much else.

One of the riders broke away and came closer to my hiding spot, finally givingme a clearer look. The mount wasn’t a horse at all but some kind of velociraptor-like dinosaur, and the armored rider was not a human but a lizardman.

The lizardman was shouting something in a language I didn’t understand, butthere was no question that he seemed to have figured out I was here. I guess Icould chalk that up to absurd dream logic, too.

He seemed to wait a moment for my reply. When none came, he apparentlygrew tired of waiting and took up a longbow, aimed it right at me, and drew thebowstring back with a powerful arm. The outline of his body briefly glowed red,but I had no time to worry about that.

The lizardman let his arrow fly, and it cut through the air, whistling straighttoward me. Yes, completely straight—it moved in a perfect line, seeminglyuntouched by gravity. In that instant, I resigned myself to dying in my dream, butthe arrow only grazed my cheek as it flew past.

My face felt hot, as if it had been burned. Unconsciously, I put my hand to mycheek and felt something slippery. Looking down, I saw that my fingers werestained red, just as I’d feared.

I touched my tongue to the fresh blood and tasted iron… Is this really a

dream…? The question sprang unbidden to my mind.

A thunderous sound like torrential rain interrupted my thoughts. The army wasfiring on me, their arrows raining down in a perfect arc. I quickly slid into ahollow in the rock—well, I tumbled into it clumsily, to be more accurate.

Before I had a chance to catch my breath, a hail of arrows pierced the groundwhere my body had been just moments before. The first shafts to land snappedand scattered as the arrows behind them struck home. Eyeing the razor-sharparrowheads, I shivered as if my back had been doused in cold water.

The arrows accumulated within thirty feet of my hiding place. Those lizardmenwere talented marksmen, but I had no time to waste on admiring them.

The only thing on my mind was fear.

Those of you who have been chased by monsters in your dreams will probablyunderstand how I felt.

I had very few options. I could stay there squatting beneath the rock and die,try to run away during a break in the cascade of arrows, or fight back.

I selected one of the three Meteor Shower icons that were still in the corner ofmy vision. The icon vanished, leaving behind a temporary trace.

But that was all.

“Oh, come on! Are you telling me the command implementation isn’t workingyet?”

As if to further fan my panic, another wave of arrows rained down. Slowly butsurely, the barrage was whittling away my hiding place. “Just how strong arethese arrows, anyway? Are these guys Robin Hood’s merry band or something?”

Cursing, I selected the two remaining Meteor Shower icons. But again, thesymbols only disappeared, with no other effect.

One of the arrows finally broke through the rock and grazed my shoulder.

“Damn it! I’m gonna die because of a bug? What kind of sick bad ending isthis?” I grumbled, but my anxious complaints soon faded to a weak murmur.

Why? Because I had spotted countless meteorites breaking through the

clouds, crashing down.

I stared stupidly at the sight.

Thanks for your patience—we’re finally back to the scene where all thisstarted.

Real name: Ichirou Suzuki.

Character name: Satou.

This is how my life in another world began.

Level Up

Hello, Satou here. Like a typical Japanese worker ant, I’ve always spentmy days neck-deep in my work, but I don’t think it ever wore me down somuch that I wished I could run away to somewhere else. I was busy, but Ifelt like my work was worth doing. It’s true, I swear!

The pain I felt right before that dust cloud overtook me seemed to haveknocked me out for about two hours. The dust had probably been aconsequence of all those meteorites hitting the earth, I figured.

The menu displayed the time in a simple format in the corner of my vision. Howconvenient.

I strained to move my body, which was half-buried in dirt.

Huh? I can’t get up…

It felt sort of like when you can’t get out of bed on a winter morning. I couldmove my hands a little, but it was difficult to do much more than sluggishlywiggle my fingers.

CLANK.

The metallic sound shook me out of my half-conscious state. “No way…,” Imuttered, but deep down I was already sure what it must be. The lizardman whohad fired the first arrow before.

As if to confirm my suspicions, a single red dot came into view on my radar.The lizardman on my still-open map screen was the only enemy left alive. Howcould he have survived all three of those ridiculous meteor attacks? I didn’t thinkthat was possible. Maybe he had avoided the bulk of the strikes by being closerto me than the others?

“I guess I lose this round, huh?” I grumbled. I was somewhat frustrated, butfor the most part the lethargic state of my body seemed to have dragged my

mind down into resignation as well.

CLANK.

But when I saw the enemy appear at the top of the cliff, that apathy of a playerwho’d just lost a strategy game vanished completely. The lizardman wasbleeding from all over his body, staining the remains of his tattered blue armorred. He spat out a spear he’d had clenched in his teeth onto the cliff and hauledhimself forward.

At that moment, his gaze fell on me and refused to break away. My arms andlegs shook pathetically. I’ve had dreams before where I wanted to run away andcouldn’t move, but I’ve never dreamed anything that made me tremble so much.

Using the spear as a cane, the warrior shambled toward me, dragging along hisbroken leg. The thing’s body was absolutely covered in wounds. If I’d reacted alittle sooner, I might have been able to catch him by surprise with a body slamand knock him off the edge of the cliff—but it was too late for that now.

Despite his battered state, the lizardman’s eyes were still burning for a fight.He definitely wanted to kill me. He pulled a sword from the scabbard at his waist—and tossed it at my feet. The sudden movement knocked off a piece of hisarmor and sent it clattering to the ground.

Now that he’d gotten this close to me, the smell of blood was so strong that Inearly gagged. It would have been far too realistic, if not for the HP gaugefloating to the right of the lizardman’s head. Underneath was the labelLizardman: Level 50.

It seemed to be some kind of augmented reality (AR) feature resembling theones used nowadays in smartphone games and the like. “Is this supposed to be agame?” I grunted, trying to trick my limbs into moving. For some reason, mybody felt a little lighter as I did so.

I had no idea what the lizardman was saying to me, but I could guess. “Youwant me to take this sword and fight?” Barely recovered, I struggled to get mybody to move, reaching for the sword. As silly as it might seem, considering I wasdreaming, the fear I felt was completely real.

I gripped the weapon as if grasping at a straw. At that moment, for whateverreason, it didn’t occur to me to beg for my life.

My mind raced. I had never taken any kind of fencing or kendo lessons. I hadn’teven lifted a hoe on a farm or used a mallet to make mochi on New Year’s Eve.So my only experience with a blade was what I’d seen in anime and manga andstuff like that, with no actual bearing in reality.

I grasped the sword tight with both shaking hands and desperately planted myfeet. The lizardman sneered as he readied his spear. Unlike my fakeswordsmanship, my opponent’s posture showed a high level of mastery.

The word he kept repeating is difficult to describe—I might spell it out asmokuugwa or makueuga. Of course, I had no idea what it meant.

As he shouted, he jabbed the glowing red spear into my shoulder. Ithurt—a lot. I’ve heard people say you feel heat more than pain with a stabwound, but no, it was pretty much just pain. It was unbearable. My mind wastoo focused on my shoulder to come up with any sort of action to take.

Pulling the spear out of me, the lizardman then stabbed at my leg as if toyingwith me. As the spear pierced my thigh, I was struck with a fresh wave of agonyand toppled unceremoniously onto my backside.

Considering how pathetic I was, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d passedout from the pain at that point, but instead, for some strange reason I stoppedfeeling it. Maybe it was my imagination, but my fear seemed to be fading, too.Perhaps I was so scared, my emotional limiter had snapped?

My arms and legs stopped shaking, and I was finally able to think straight. TheHP gauge I could see by my opponent’s head was nearly zero, but I doubted Icould fight him and win. If I tried coming at him with my sword, surely he’d easilycounter my attack and put a quick end to things by slashing my throat.

Luckily, it looked like my enemy’s movements were as pained as mine. I had tocreate some kind of opening while he was tormenting me and make a break forit.

As I stood up, I grabbed a fistful of the dry soil. Throwing dirt in an opponent’s

eyes might be cheap, but I didn’t have the luxury of a fair fight right now. Iwatched the lizardman carefully and struck his spear with my sword just as hedrew back. I must have underestimated my remaining strength, because theshove threw him off-balance.

Now’s my chance!

I flung the dirt at his face with all my might. It scattered in midair, but enoughof it still reached the creature’s face. Unfortunately, my opponent was a stepahead of me—he defended himself by throwing an arm up in front of his eyes.

Damn it, you’re supposed to be mortally wounded! But at least his arm wasblocking his vision. Aiming for his legs, I swung my weapon and let go, flinging itforward. But I had apparently swung too hard—it flew toward the lizardman’storso instead.

I had planned to run away the moment I released the sword, but the sceneunfolding before my eyes stopped me in my tracks.

“Huh?!”

The sword had left my hands with shocking speed and cut right through thelizardman’s middle, dividing him in half. Blood gushed out of his severed body.

Oh god… I’m not good with gory stuff. And I’d never seen anything sogruesome before, not even in movies.

“He’s disappearing…” Just like an enemy in a video game, the lizardman’scorpse was fading away. However, the traces of blood left behind were proofthat the battle had been no illusion.

I sat down hard on the ground and looked up at the sky, then finally took adeep breath. Whew! This dream is exhausting… If I have to dream something sorealistic, couldn’t I be on a tropical beach or something, making out with hotgirls in bikinis?

I took off my polo shirt to try to treat my wounds. It was chilly, but not somuch that I’d catch a cold. Putting it into Storage, I used my T-shirt to wipe offthe blood.

Strangely enough, I’d stopped bleeding. I would’ve expected a stab woundfrom a spear to last a lot longer. When I rubbed at the hardened blood with myfinger, it fell away in clumps. Underneath it was perfectly clear skin—not even somuch as a scar.

The pain had stopped, too, I realized. Maybe this gamelike dream had a systemwhere you healed automatically after clearing a mission? I opened the statusscreen to confirm; sure enough, my HP had been fully restored. On closerinspection, in fact, my maximum HP had increased. Not only that, but my levelhad jumped from 1 to 310!

The crazy speed of that sword throw before must have been because of myhigh level. My strength, as well as all my other stats, had been raised all the wayto the max value.

I must have leveled up so much because of all the enemies I defeated withthose Meteor Showers. Wanting to see the aftermath of the Meteor Showers, Ilooked over the edge of the cliff. The scenery below was terrifying. A veil of duststill hung in the air, obscuring the wasteland, but the ground I could make outthrough it was dotted with craters. The area where the army had stood wasthoroughly pockmarked, too.

My assumption had probably been right: The lizardman I’d fought before musthave escaped a direct hit from the meteorites because he was some distanceaway from the rest of the group. Since he had still been on the verge of death,the shock waves alone must have been incredibly powerful.

As for the canyon in the distance, the Valley of Dragons, it seemed like a gooddeal of the area had caved in. It looked less like the aftermath of a magical in-game attack and more like the battered surface of the moon. Well, that was onlyto be expected if a small pocket of land was hammered with three attacks ofmore than a hundred meteorites each, I guess.

The scenery looked like something from a movie, so maybe that was why itdidn’t feel real. Ah, right—this is a dream anyway…isn’t it? It was too vivid for adream, yet far too strange to be real life. If anything, it seemed more likely I wasinside a game.

Well, if this is a game, you’d think beating all those enemies would triggersome sort of event.

Trying to gather more information, I looked at the log screen. It started withthe message WELCOME TO OUR WORLD. Normally, this would seem like a prettysignificant statement, but since FFL starts with that same message, I skimmedpast it.

The log showed what icons I had used, the defeats of the lizardmen and otherenemies, and the defeat of some dragons that had apparently been the formerrulers of the Valley of Dragons. It also included notifications of level-ups and theacquisition of various titles and then, finally, my victory over the last lizardman.After this was a line that said SOURCE: CONQUERED THE VALLEY OF DRAGONS, but I had noidea what that meant and simply ignored it.

Next was a log of all the spoils I’d gained in battle. Even the corpse of that

lizardman was listed among the loot, which would explain why it haddisappeared. Am I supposed to become a necromancer now, or what?

Remembering my opponent’s graphic death, I made a Graveyard folder in myStorage and stowed all the corpses in there. After a moment’s thought, I gazedat the folder and clasped my hands together in a brief prayer.

As I continued checking my status, I noticed that those emergency skills forbeginners that I’d used earlier had been registered in the magic menu. I hadn’tbeen able to access that menu, but now it seemed I could use the new magicskills on the list if I selected and enabled them.

I wish this dream didn’t have all these annoying systems.

Testing out Search Entire Map wouldn’t necessarily prove its effectiveness, so Idecided to try out the Meteor Shower spell. A quick check of the map confirmedthat I was alone, so it shouldn’t be a problem. I had to test it out while I had thechance, lest I find myself in a dilemma and try to use it only to get a NOT ENOUGH

MP message or something.

I selected Meteor Shower in the magic menu and chose use. Perhaps becausethere weren’t any enemies on the map, a pop-up appeared that said Pleaseselect a target. I guess I have to mark a target area for destructive magic, like inWW. I picked a site about three times as far away as the Valley of Dragons.

Apparently, this was good enough, because my MP meter decreasedimmediately. I felt like something was being drawn out of my body, much moreintensely than when I had used Search Entire Map. This hadn’t happened thefirst time I used these skills, probably because I wasn’t using my own magicpower then. This time, my MP went down by a thousand points or so, about athird of my total.

I looked up at the sky. No meteorites yet. Going by the first time, they shouldbe showing up any moment now. Finally, I saw something burst through theclouds like before, but…

What’s going on? They’re HUGE!

The boulders streaking toward the ground were almost a hundred times thesize of the rocks I’d summoned before. No, considering how far away they were,

they must have been even bigger. Before I could start wondering why, Iinstinctively broke into a run. Away from the hail of meteorites, obviously!

Meteorites probably wasn’t the right word for these giant chunks of rocktearing through the atmosphere. A wave of sound bore down on me so hard myskin rippled, and I ran even faster, shrieking at a volume that rivaled thethunderous roar. I have no idea what I actually screamed, if anything. I doremember the incredibly strong air resistance, like I was running through water.

As I fled, I eventually noticed that I was going way too fast, but it was too lateto hit the brakes. I braced my legs with all my strength, but I still couldn’t stop.The physical stress shredded my sneakers like scraps of paper. My heel smashedthrough a rock, and when my hands hit the ground, my fingers carved out tengrooves in the stone.

But even that wasn’t enough to stop my movement, and I went flying off theedge of the cliff into the air. Since I’d managed to kill most of my momentum, Iwas able to land on a protruding rock formation about fifteen feet down.

Man, that was three times scarier than a free fall.

Periodic tremors in the earth made it impossible to stand. I clung to theprotrusion, not wanting to fall all the way down. A tidal wave of dirt, like amuddy river, flooded across the ground. Occasionally, I’d see rocks the size of acar rolling along with the dust, sending a shiver up my spine.

Once the earth had stopped shaking, I attempted to climb back up theescarpment to see the results of the Meteor Shower. The air was still hazy withdebris, so I wrapped my T-shirt around my face in lieu of a mask. It smelled ofblood a little, but it was better than breathing in dust and having a coughing fit.

When I pressed my fingers into the cliff face, they made little finger-size holes.The rock didn’t seem to be particularly brittle, so I was able to climb up withrelative ease.

Upon reaching the top again, I remembered that I was now barefoot, so Isearched through my Storage. I found some sandals and tried taking them out,but they were covered in blood, so I hastily put them back.

If I have to use something bloody anyway, it might as well be my own blood. I

took the red-stained polo shirt out of Storage, ripped it in two, and wrappedeach half around one of my feet. Not exactly stylish, but it would do for now.

When I raised my head and peered into the distance, I saw something thatlooked like a mushroom cloud. Moving to the edge of the cliff, I could make out ared light on the surface. Was it lava that had burst out from underground,maybe? It might have just been fire, but since I couldn’t tell from here what thesituation was, I decided to look at the map.

I switched the map display from 2-D to 3-D. Judging by the fact that my targetmarker was now floating in midair, the ground must have collapsed considerably.The land around where the meteors had struck was warped and distorted, too.

Gazing at the mushroom cloud, I silently opened the magic menu and switchedthe Meteor Shower spell from enabled to disabled, rendering it unusable.

This spell is dangerous. If I used it over and over, I’d turn right into a demonlord. They say a wise man stays away from danger, so I was better off keeping itsealed away.

The reason it was so much stronger than the first time was the increase in mylevel or my intelligence stat, or so I figured. And it looked like my other attributeshad powered up, too. That I was able to make holes in the rock with my fingerswas probably thanks to a heightened strength stat, and my ability to endure therecoil from that was probably my higher stamina. And that mad dash that wasfast enough to create air resistance must have been my agility stat at work.

I picked up a pebble and fiddled with it experimentally, but luckily, it seemedlike I was able to control my new strength perfectly. I didn’t feel any strongerthan usual as I held it then rolled it around between my fingers. But when I triedfor a moment to use enough force to break it, it crumbled in my hand.

At one point, I’d accidentally sneezed while holding the pebble, but I didn’tcrush it or anything. That was a relief.

Maybe it was all the dust blowing around, but the weather was starting to lookdodgy, so I found a tent in my spoils and set it up to take a break. Munching on aprotein bar, I found a Well Bag among my loot, which I used to quench my thirst.Apparently, this was some kind of Magic Item that never ran out of water. Veryconvenient, but trying to figure out how it worked seemed like it could keep me

up at night, so I decided not to think about it too much.

Rain had started falling at some point, and it seemed unlikely to let up anytimesoon. Since I had some time to kill, I decided to check out the rest of my spoils.

Most of the items were damaged to some extent, probably squashed by themeteorites. There were all kinds of tools, equipment, and everyday necessities,but with most of them broken, I made a few dedicated folders and set themaside.

There were tons of gold coins, silver coins, and all manner of jewels, too. Iguess it’s true that dragons like shiny things. I found all kinds of currency fromvarious places, and I quickly lost interest in sorting through it. The mostnumerous were the gold coins from someplace called the Flue Kingdom, of whichI had more than ten million—a preposterous 303 tons. Maybe the humans therehad been forced to make periodic tributes to the dragons?

I don’t know if this is a dream or a game or what, but if I find my way to ahuman civilization, it looks like I won’t need to worry about money. I hopethere’s no bartering system…

Among my Magic Items were all manner of Holy Swords, Divine Blades, and thelike, plus something called a Magic Gun. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind,my middle school self was going nuts. All the swords had stupid names likeExcalibur and Durandal, but since it was my dream, I guess I had my ownsubconscious to thank for that.

Possibly as some kind of antitheft measure, the Holy Swords unleashed astatic-like shock that damaged me when I pulled them out, so I put them awayfor the time being. I’d been able to use them for only a minute, but the swordsemitted a pretty blue light when I did. The light faded after a brief moment,though, so maybe they just glowed in the dark.

Moving on, I took the Magic Gun out of Storage and fired it experimentally at anearby rock. There was a little bit of lag between when I pulled the trigger andwhen the gun fired, but it was still pretty powerful.

At any rate, now that I’d played around for a bit, it was time to get back to thework of sorting all my items.

Before I knew it, the rain had stopped.

I think I must have dozed off while sorting. This was much more sleep than I’dgotten in a while, so I woke up feeling refreshed. That I was able to sleep sosoundly on a cliff like this shows just how exhausted I’d been.

I poured water into a pail I’d found in Storage and used it to wash my face.

…Huh? Wait, something didn’t look quite right there.

I looked again. Something was definitely off. Pulling out the flip phone from mypocket, I snapped a selfie.

“Yeesh! This is what I looked like as a first-year in high school…” Maybe it wasjust my imagination, but even my voice sounded younger. Well, I guess it wasn’tthat unusual to dream about being a student again.

Having gotten a good night’s rest, I figured it was probably time to move on,since there wasn’t much else to do here. Looking at the map, I found an areacalled the Soldiers’ Stronghold about sixty miles to the west. It seemed to bedevoid of life, and it was on the very edge of my map, so I wasn’t sure what thesituation might be beyond it.

But I didn’t see any other significant man-made landmarks, so I figured I mightas well start in that direction.

Before heading out, I opened up the skill screen to mess around a little. I hadignored it yesterday, but it looked like a lot of new skills had appeared on the list.I counted eleven in total: “One-Handed Sword,” “Throwing,” “Evasion,” “Parry,”“Practical Magic: Other World,” “Summoning Magic: Other World,” “FearResistance,” “Pain Resistance,” “Self-Healing,” “Observation,” and “AncientScalefolk Language.”

Maybe I had just learned them by leveling up, but it seemed like there wouldbe more if that was the case. Did I acquire skills through my actions somehow?

Skill levels ranged from 1 to 10, and you could enhance them by allotting skillpoints to them. It was a simple conversion rate of one point for each level, and Icurrently had 3,100 points left, so I just leveled them up as I saw fit.

I didn’t want a repeat of that lizardman encounter, so I started by maxing outany skills that had to do with resistance or seemed like they’d be useful incombat. It looked like you could also turn them on and off after allotting points.

I descended from the cliff and ran along the ground.

I was wearing an item I’d found in my Storage called Wing Shoes. Theambiguous flavor text stated that they make small adjustments for walking adifficult path, but at any rate, they were certainly sturdy. I’d changed my clothesas well, into a robe I found in my spoils made of something called Yuriha fiber.

Presumably because of my increased stats, I was moving at almost forty milesper hour, yet I didn’t feel tired or out of breath at all. Worrying about it toomuch threatened to make me trip on my own feet, though, so I tried to justfocus on running.

With the morning sun at my back, I cleared my mind and kept moving forward.

Hmm? What was that?

As I bounded toward the Soldiers’ Stronghold, I felt myself breaking throughsome kind of membrane. I slowed down to have a look. About a mile away fromthe Stronghold, there seemed to be a thin force field.

As I gazed at the invisible wall for a moment, an AR display popped up with thelabel Valley of Dragons: Barrier. A barrier… Just one more fantasy cliché, I guess.

There was a little bit of resistance, but it seemed like I could go in and outpretty easily. It seemed to halt air movement—when I kicked up a cloud of dust,it stopped at the invisible wall. Even the vegetation seemed to be different oneither side—the reddish-brown wasteland turned light brown, with a few weedssprouting here and there.

Well, I guess it was a wasteland either way, but still.

I removed the piece of cloth I’d wrapped around my mouth and took a deepbreath at last. Ahh…the air tasted great. It was dry, but that was pretty normalfor what seemed to be a winter climate.

Not long after passing through the barrier, I arrived at my current goal, theSoldiers’ Stronghold. It was a compact stone fortress, with a mortar plaza that

seemed to be some kind of arena. The outer walls were crumbling; it was evenmore abandoned than I’d expected. I had known from the map that there wasnobody there, but the place seemed like it had been empty for a very long time,as it was overrun with dust and spiderwebs.

I searched around the inside and outside of the stronghold, but aside fromsome gravestones in the shadow of the arena, I didn’t find much of anything.

Since this seemed to be the edge of the Valley of Dragons, the scope of myradar was reduced to only a few dozen feet. Looking at the map, I saw that thename in the upper-left corner had changed from Valley of Dragons to ShigaKingdom: Seiryuu County. Hmm. So this is some kind of monarchy, huh?

If this were a legend or myth, I’d probably meet a beautiful princess and fall inlove or something—but given my personality, I was way more likely to be asupporting character who cheers on the hero from the sidelines.

I didn’t know how long this dream was going to go on, but it could have atleast thrown in a lovable busty maid.

I decided to use the Search Entire Map function to investigate Seiryuu County,but first, I did a few experiments. It seemed like the AR screen had only basicmenu functionality, while the spell offered more detailed information.

Still experimenting, I opened the map and inspected the nearest populatedarea. This worked similarly to the one in WW, and once I’d used Search EntireMap, I could freely refine it to show human or animal life, not just the terrain.

Apparently, the closest civilized area was a place called Seiryuu City, abouttwelve miles away. There was another city, too, but that one was hidden away insome mountains roughly thirty miles out, so I nixed it. I saw plenty of villages,too, but Seiryuu City was still closest, so it didn’t make sense to traipse all theway out there.

Seiryuu County stretched about forty miles in all directions. Bigger than Tokyobut smaller than Chiba, maybe? This was stuff I’d learned making models inmiddle school, so I didn’t have a lot of confidence in my estimate.

On the way to Seiryuu City, maybe three miles from here, there was an army ofabout one hundred people. The average level of the soldiers was 7, with the

highest being 31.

That seems surprisingly low…, I thought, as I looked closer at the map. Therewere less than ten people in the entire area above level 40 and none at all abovelevel 50. It was probably safe to assume 310 was a pretty high level, then.

Still, I don’t like trouble, so I decided to take a roundabout path so as to avoidencountering the army. Maybe I was being a little overly cautious despite beingin a dream, but I didn’t want to make any more frightening memories.

As I went on my way to Seiryuu City, a red dot suddenly appeared on my radar,racing straight toward me. I was traveling through a rocky area with lots of upsand downs, so even if I looked in the direction of the dot, I couldn’t see anything.

Examining my map, I discovered it was a level 30 wyvern. I wanted to check itout, so I hopped onto a nearby rock formation.

“Ngh?!”

As I leaped up, I crashed headfirst into the wyvern, and the collision sent metumbling to the ground.

Ohh, my head…

I’d rolled down along no less than thirty feet of rocky ground before smashinginto a rock face. Good thing I had that “Pain Resistance” skill…and a high VITstat, I guess. Despite all that bumping around, I didn’t have a single wound. I’vegotten pretty sturdy, haven’t I?

The beast had flown back up into the sky and was circling around, waiting forthe right time to attack. Judging by the size of the head I’d smacked into earlier,I’d say its wingspan was about one hundred feet. Its body looked closer to apteranodon than a dragon, I thought. And the stinger on the end of its long tailwas a typical fantasy add-on for this kind of creature.

Trying to make a diversion, I chucked a nearby pebble at the circling predator.

Huh? I’d just wanted to distract it, but the stone pierced right through thewyvern’s wing and disappeared into the sky beyond. If this had been a manga, Igot the feeling there would’ve been a twinkle and a little shing! sound effect asthe projectile soared away.

It may have pierced the creature’s wing, but the pebble had still been only asmall one, so it wasn’t enough to bring it down. Still, it served the purpose ofdriving it away. The wyvern flew off toward a distant cliff, tracing an unsteadypath through the air.

Oh dear. It was heading in the direction of that army.

The knight leading the party was a higher level than the wyvern, so I figuredthey’d probably be fine, but still… I felt kind of bad for sending it their way in thefirst place, so I decided to go check things out, just in case.

I scaled the sixty-foot cliff in only three jumps. I probably could have done it intwo, but the branches jutting out from the rock face were in the way.

As I ascended, I saw the wyvern circling above new prey. Jumping over a fewlarge rocks at the top, I could see the monster’s target—the army down below.They were probably about eight hundred, maybe a thousand feet away.

I could hear the commander’s voice from here, but no matter how hard Istrained, I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Of course, I speak onlyJapanese and a little bit of broken English, but usually I can at least guess whatlanguage I’m hearing. This time, though, it was apparently a language I’d neverheard before. And it wasn’t just some gibberish nonsense like you often hear indreams—it sounded like it had a real structure.

Come to think of it, the lizardmen’s language was like that, too, wasn’t it? Itwas getting harder and harder to believe this was really a dream, but…thealternative was too frightening, so I tried to press on with the conviction thatthis was all in my mind.

Once I’d properly escaped from thinking about my situation, I checked in onmy skill menu, and sure enough, a new skill called “Shigan Language” hadappeared. For now, I decided to allot one point to it.

“Everyone! Line up—quickly!”

Aha! It wasn’t perfect, but I could understand the gist of the commander’swords. I added on a few more points. Before long, I could tell he’d said, “Allhands, form a circle! Quickly, now!” I could comfortably understand the

language at around five points, it seemed. Just to try it out, I raised the skillpoints to the max of ten, but after six or so, it didn’t make much of a difference.

Aside from the language, I’d also gained seven more skills somewhere alongthe way: “Hand-to-Hand Combat,” “Sprinting,” “Spatial Mobility,” “Long-Distance Vision,” “Telescopic Sight,” “Keen Hearing,” and “Lip Reading.” In WWand FFL, gaining skills usually involved clearing fairly difficult quests andmissions, but the process seemed a lot easier in this dream.

I’d turned off the log screen display, since it got in the way when I was moving,but I wanted to know how I was acquiring skills, so I set it up so I could see just afew lines at a time in the corner of my vision. For the moment, I divvied out somepoints to skills that seemed useful for watching the show—er, for keeping an eyeon the situation: “Long-Distance Vision,” “Telescopic Sight,” “Keen Hearing,”and “Observation.”

The army had huddled into a circular formation to fend off the wyvern. When Iconcentrated on them, my new skills kicked in—I could see them as if lookingthrough binoculars. How was it that my field of vision remained the same, yetwhatever I focused on became as clear as if I’d zoomed in? I decided to save thatinvestigation for another time and turned my attention to the matter at hand.

A row of heavily armored soldiers with large shields manned the outside of thecircle, while inside, there were two rows of more lightly equipped soldiers withlong spears. The way the points all shifted to match the movements of thecircling wyvern made the formation look like some sort of living creature. Afterthe spearmen, a group of archers knelt in standby position, ready to loose.

“Don’t be afraid, soldiers! Remember your training!”

“Let’s show that thing the spirit of Seiryuu!”

Voices called out from the within the ring, encouraging the frightened soldiers.

Well, yeah… It was only natural to be afraid of a monster like that.

In the very center of the circle stood a robed, staff-wielding figure, presumablya sorcerer. To the figure’s left and right were two female soldiers, lightlyarmored and holding what looked like conductor’s batons. At first I thought theywere guns, but the AR label that popped up informed me they were called short

wands. Apparently, the women wielding them were known as magic soldiers. Sothe two women were magic users, too… Then why weren’t they wearing robes?

A group of soldiers standing near the trio appeared to be the sorcerers’escorts. And outside the circle, eight or so knights trotted around on horseback.It looked almost like they were moving behind the four ranks of troops, puttingthe circle between them and the wyvern. These guys were covered from head totoe in shining, silvery full-plate armor, so why were they using the rest of thearmy as a shield?

“Here it comes! Spearmen, don’t let your spear tips wave around in the air!Plant the end in the ground and drive it in with your feet. If it’s loose, thewyvern’s attack will knock it right out of your hands!”

“Archers, hold—wait until it is frightened by the spears and slows its speed!”

The commander’s meticulous instructions were probably only frighteningthese poor soldiers even more, not reassuring them. Possibly that was why eachtime the monster attacked, they only staved it off with their spears withoutmaking much of a counterattack.

The archers were pretty skilled, seeing as about 90 percent of the arrows hittheir mark. But it seemed like most of them just bounced off the wyvern withoutcausing damage. Was the creature’s skin just that tough, or was it because theirlevel wasn’t high enough? I couldn’t tell.

But, just like a critical hit in a game, one of the girls guarding the sorcerersmanaged to pierce the wyvern’s hide with an arrow.

Around this point, I noticed there were more soldiers in the forest somedistance from the circle. At a glance, they appeared lightly outfitted—perhapsthey were noncombat personnel, like military engineers or transportationofficers, taking refuge from the battle.

…Which meant the army had most likely challenged the wyvern expecting towin. I’d planned to help out by scaring it away with rocks if necessary, but itseemed like I’d worried for nothing.

I stowed away the rock in Storage and settled in to watch how this army wouldfight.

The wyvern repeatedly swooped down to attack, but the encircled troopssimply repelled it each time with their spear wall and short bolts they shot fromtheir crossbows.

Finally, during the fourth attack, something changed. Just as it started toreturn to the sky after another failed attack, its balance faltered, as if one of itswings had suddenly lost its lift. The beast crashed into the ground unnaturally,like a giant invisible hammer had struck it.

This must have been some kind of magic at work.

When the wyvern had lost its balance, I’d heard one of the sorcerers in thecenter chanting a rhythmic, almost synthetic-sounding song, ending with ashouted word: “Turbulence!”

The last part must have been a trigger word or something—I heard it almost instereo. It was like she’d spoken an ancient word and its modern equivalent at thesame time; my brain processed the modern word in Japanese (rankiryuu) and theancient word in English (“turbulence”). It was pretty fascinating.

Apparently, the spell that had delivered the final blow to bring down thewyvern was called Air Hammer. This was the first time I had heard a magic spellbeing chanted, but I had to wonder how the incantations in this world werepronounced. I could understand the final trigger words, but the chant itselfseemed more like a series of bizarre sounds than actual words. It was almost likeif you used music software to generate a series of notes on a PC.

While pointless details once again distracted me, the battle had progressed.

The wyvern was making revolting shrieks as it dragged itself along the ground,but its HP bar indicated it hadn’t actually taken all that much damage.

But the sorcerers seemed to have done their job well.

The creature spread its wings in an attempt to fly, but the mounted knightspierced them with their lances. Still, its HP was down by only about 20 percent.

A particularly high-level knight skillfully pinned one of the wings to the ground,trapping the wyvern on its back. The other knights worked together toimmobilize the other wing, but a single flap sent them flying back several feet,horses and all.

They had pinned the monster less than three hundred feet away from the rockI was hiding behind. I might be a little too close…

“… Lightning Bolt Inazuma!”

The sorcerer in the center of the circle brought down a flash of lightning on thewyvern. It wasn’t an all-out thunderbolt, but the roaring sound and white flashstill pained my eyes and ears. I guess there were some disadvantages to the“Keen Hearing” and “Long-Distance Vision” skills.

My ears were still ringing, so I didn’t hear any orders, but the soldiers brokeinto three groups, surrounding the wyvern with spears in hand. The sorcerersfrom the center scattered into three groups, too, alongside their escorts.

Even pinned to the ground and numbed by the lightning, the wyvern stillstruggled violently. Thrashing the stinger on its tail and snapping its beak, itseemed to be landing a few hits on the soldiers’ ranks. Even at point-blank range,the spears and crossbows of the soldiers could hardly pierce the thick hide, butlittle by little it was taking damage.

The wyvern’s defeat seemed imminent, but it had apparently been waiting forits chance. Aiming at a soldier who’d carelessly gotten too close, it swung its longtail and landed a direct hit.

Possibly loosened by the force of that movement, the creature’s wings flappedopen, and it charged toward the nearest cliff.

In other words, my hiding place.

“Stop that thing! Zena!”

“Yes, sir!”

The commander shouted what sounded like a ridiculous command at theclosest magic soldier. The soldiers in front of her, though visibly alarmed by theattacking monster, resolutely steadied their spears to stop it.

These troops may have been frightened, but they had pretty high morale. If Iwere in their shoes, I’d be running away at full speed.

“… Air Cushion Kiheki!”

Charging at the speed of an Olympic sprinter, the wyvern crashed into an

invisible wall just a few feet from the magic soldier. I couldn’t see the wall, butthe cloud of dirt and weeds suggested it was about as big as a few soccer goalsstacked on top of one another.

Since the situation had nothing to do with me, I could afford to relax as Iassessed it, but for the soldiers involved, it was no laughing matter. Apparently,even magic wasn’t enough to change the laws of physics, because the wyvernand the soldier who’d made the barrier were both affected by the blowback.

The wyvern pitched forward onto the ground, but the small magic soldier wasforcefully sent flying. The spell must have worked just like a cushion; she wasknocked into the air, but not enough to crush her. It was probably no worse thantaking a powerful punch.

Immediately, two spells shot toward the scene of the clash.

“… Lightning Bolt Inazuma!”

“… Resist Fall Rakkasokudo Keigen!”

The former finished off the wyvern with another flash of lightning, while thelatter was a spell to slow the fall of the magic soldier whirling through the air. Atfirst, I wasn’t sure what kind of magic it was, but since I could see her downwardspeed visibly drop, it was easy enough to figure out.

The problem was that her horizontal velocity didn’t slow at all. She was at leastsixty-five feet in the air, and at the rate she was going, she’d pass over my headand fly straight over the precipice behind me.

Their battle had felt so real, I didn’t even stop to think that this was only adream or anything like that. I just turned on my heel and ran, moving along thetop of a thick dead branch that jutted out toward the cliff.

It was a little frightening, but even if I fell at this height, I’d be fine. I knew thatfrom personal experience…unfortunately.

I stopped right at the end of the branch and stretched out my hand. But itwasn’t quite enough.

Below me, I saw another, slightly longer branch, so I jumped down to it,reaching out as far as I could. This time I made it! As if it had been waiting for me

to grab her cloak, the fall reduction spell wore off, and the magic soldier’s weightreturned to normal.

Crap. I reached a little too far.

The girl’s weight was dragging me down with her. I clung to the tree branchand managed to stop both of us from falling. I shifted my posture, hoisting herup with a hand under her chest. If this were a light novel or manga, it would bethe perfect time for some accidental raunchiness, but I regret to inform you thatall I felt was the cold, hard metal of her breastplate. It was a bit disappointing,sure, but this wasn’t exactly the right situation for that kind of thing, anyway, soI just adjusted my grip and carried her back toward the root of the branch.

The magic soldier was unconscious, apparently having fainted when shecollided with the wyvern. Brushing aside her sweat-drenched bangs, I saw thatshe had a sweet, gentle face. According to the AR display, she was ZenaMarienteil, seventeen years old. It seemed that she was from a long line ofhereditary knights. Did that make her some sort of aristocrat? I wasn’t sure.

If I had to sum up her appearance, I’d say she was slender, plain, and beautiful:the type who’d probably be oblivious to her own popularity with the guys. Herlight-golden hair was woven into a braid, and some kind of armored headpieceprotected her small head.

Long lashes adorned her closed eyelids, and the eyebrows that had beenhidden by her bangs painted a strong line, though I couldn’t tell if they weredrawn on or not. I didn’t see any makeup on her, and she had a goodcomplexion, her lips a soft-looking pink.

The girl didn’t seem to be wearing any perfume, but there was still a faintlysweet, feminine scent mixed in with the smell of sweat. She wore leather armorover her long-sleeve shirt and trousers, along with heavy boots and the durablecloak on her shoulders that had saved her life. She must have dropped her shortwand, though, because her hands were empty.

I had been too frantic to notice before, but messages about new skills andtitles had appeared in my log.

> Title Acquired: Lifesaver

> Skill Acquired: “Transport”

Apparently, titles were just as easy to acquire as skills.

“Mm…where am I?”

“Oh, you’re awake?” She had just come to, so I issued a quick warning. “Irecommend you hold off on looking down.”

“Huh? Aaah!” As a soldier, it seemed like her only reaction to being on a thinbranch on the side of a cliff was a short cry of alarm.

“Are you hurt?”

“I’m still a little numb all over, but I don’t think I’m injured anywhere…” Maybeshe wasn’t used to being near men, but she seemed a bit uncomfortable with mycarrying her, so I helped her up onto the base of the sturdier branch above.

“Ah, ow…”

“Are you all right?”

It seemed to hurt her to put weight on her foot, so I quickly moved to supporther. She must have hurt her ankle when the wyvern sent her flying. It didn’t lookbroken, but it was probably sprained.

“Thank you very much. Where are we? Last I remember, I was fighting awyvern…”

“You fell right out of the sky! I happened to be climbing up the cliff here.”

“I fell from up there?” The girl looked up at the top of the rock wall,dumbfounded. It was about fifteen feet above us, maybe around a three-storyclimb.

“I think some kind of magic slowed down your fall, which is why I was able tocatch you.”

“Really? Then you saved my life,” she said, shyly thanking me. She was slightlytaller than me, but maybe because her chin was lowered, she seemed to belooking up at me. She had a pretty powerful smile.

If I were still a high school student, I’m sure it would have been love at firstsight.

But I’m not some pervert who falls in love with girls over ten years youngerthan me, so obviously that didn’t apply.

“No, not at all. My name is Satou. I’m just a humble traveling peddler.” Thisoccupation was the backstory I’d come up with on the way here. Judging by thefeudal fantasy setting, there was a chance that normal citizens would have theirmovement limited, and if I just said I was a traveler, I might be mistaken for athief. It might have been silly to take all these precautions in a dream, but givenhow real things had been so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if I got imprisoned orsomething.

Trying to lend more authenticity to my story, I looked her in the eyes as Ispoke.

“I-I-I’m Zena, a magic soldier and a vassal of Count Seiryuu. I’ve served in hisarmy for two years. I’m seventeen years old, unmarried, and s-single!”

Uh…nobody asked any of that, but okay.

Zena seemed a little frantic, but her expression was sincere as she told meabout her family structure and such. I nodded along and gave one-syllableresponses where necessary, all the while gauging the best route up the wall.

“Excuse me for a second. I’m going to jump a few times.” Carrying her withboth arms, I hopped lightly in place. She seemed surprised but not in pain. “Hangon—I’m going to take us up.”

“Huh? Up this cliff?!”

“Yes—there’s a surprising number of footholds, so it should be easy enough.Let’s go!” Making sure she was holding on tightly, I leaped lightly from footholdto foothold. I tried to use my entire body, not just my knees, like a spring toabsorb the shock of each jump so as not to jostle her.

“We’re here.”

“Phew… You’re very agile, aren’t you?”

Zena still clung to me, and I could feel her heart pounding through her armor.Her cheeks seemed flushed as she looked up, and her voice was shaky as shespoke.

What an unusual girl.

She still seemed scared, because she made no effort to get down, so Icontinued carrying her as we crossed the rocky plateau, taking her back towardher friends.

“Stop right there! Who are you? Let go of her!”

A petite woman stood challenging me from the top of a large rock. One ofZena’s colleagues, presumably. She scowled at me, her crossbow at the ready.

“W-wait, Lilio! He’s fine!”

“Be quiet, Zenacchi!”

Zena tried to intervene on my behalf, but the other party wasn’t having any ofit. Well, that was a normal reaction, I suppose. Carefully, I lowered her to theground in a sitting position.

“Good. Now get back!”

“Lilio! This person saved my life!”

Once I had backed away far enough, a heavily armored female soldier emergedquickly from the shadow of the cliff and rushed over to Zena, lifted her up, andcarried her back toward the rock face. In her place, another armored womanemerged, pointing her large broadsword at me. Zena could be heard protestingon the other side, but the woman refused to lower her sword.

…I mean, I did save her life, but okay.

“Name yourself.”

I couldn’t see her face under her headgear, but the soldier’s voice was kind ofsultry. Judging by the curves that her armor couldn’t entirely disguise, she wasdefinitely a beauty. Okay, this was just my personal theory, but I’d be prettypleased if I was right.

“Speak up. What is your name?”

“Nice to meet you, soldier. My name is Satou. I’m a traveling peddler.”

“Rather empty-handed for a peddler, are you not?”

I guess the flat bag slung over my shoulder wasn’t enough for her. It wassomething I’d found in my spoils—the bottomless bag of holding standard to anytabletop RPG. In this world, it was called a Garage Bag.

I didn’t really need it, since I had Storage, but the small black leather satchelmade for a stylish fashion accessory. Was it unusual for a merchant to carry hisgoods in a bag like this?

“I’m embarrassed to say that my packhorse ran away from me yesterday afterbeing startled by the meteorites.”

“Meteorites? Ah, you mean yesterday’s starfall.”

I figured that the Meteor Showers I’d cast yesterday had probably been visiblefrom a distance, so it made sense to use that as my excuse. The fact that theywere already calling it a “starfall” was typical fantasy writing.

> Skill Acquired: “Fabrication”

> Skill Acquired: “Making Excuses”

Okay, I knew I made that up on the fly just now, but those skill names were alittle uncalled for. Although, that being said, they looked kind of useful, so Idecided to throw a few points into each anyway.

“There’s a hole in your story. If you were traveling along the highway, yourhorse would’ve run in the opposite direction.”

It was really too bad that I couldn’t see the woman’s face. I had no doubt shewas wearing a decidedly sadistic expression.

I felt strangely calm, considering I was being interrogated at swordpoint, butthat was probably because the menu icons and radar in my field of vision weredetracting from my sense of reality. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was justa game and there was no need for concern.

Maybe because I’d enabled the “Fabrication” skill, all kinds of suitable excusescame to mind. “I beg your pardon, but do you know of a place called theSoldiers’ Stronghold?”

“Yes, of course. It’s where people go who wish to die.”

Was it a popular suicide spot, or what? But I was glad it wasn’t a restrictedarea.

“I was told the grave of one of my grandfather’s benefactors is there, so I wason my way to visit it when I saw the starfall. When my horse ran off, I panickedand chased after it, but of course I couldn’t catch up…”

“I see. How very unfortunate.”

Oh? Did she believe me? Leave it to my maxed-out “Fabrication” and “MakingExcuses” skills, I guess—they were super effective.

“Do you have your identification papers?”

Identification papers? I had my driver’s license in my wallet, but I was prettysure showing that would only cause more problems.

“Unfortunately, they were hidden in my packhorse’s mantle, so I don’t havethem on hand.”

“Well then, you can have them reissued in Seiryuu City.” With that, she slid herlarge sword back into the scabbard on her back and fastened it in place.

“Hey, Iona, you’re really gonna believe him just like that? What if he’s a thief?”

“He has very prim fingers, not to mention that expensive magic robe. Mostlikely, he’s a noble from some small country in the north.”

“He might be a spy, then!”

“I doubt they would employ someone who’s clearly not from our kingdom as aspy, don’t you think?” The young woman who’d come down from the rock waswhispering urgently to the heavily armored soldier. Thanks to my “Keen Hearing”skill, I could hear everything.

“What’s the matter, Lilio? I thought the younger ones with black hair wereyour type.”

“…They’re my least favorite now, due to personal reasons.”

“Ahh, he dumped you, huh? Want me to treat you sometime to some foodthat’ll make your chest bigger?”

“He didn’t dump me because of my chest! But I won’t say no to a free meal.You can listen to my troubles while you’re at it, too.”

Having more or less persuaded them to calm down, Zena left the two to theirgirl talk and came over to apologize for her colleagues’ rudeness.

Together with the other women, we headed toward the troop headquarters.Their encampment was right next to the highway, so I didn’t have much choicebut to follow along. Besides, it probably would have seemed suspicious if I hadtried to take my leave there and wander off into the forest or something.

The battlefield smelled so strongly of blood that I felt like I might throw up.Luckily, it didn’t actually happen—thanks to my resistance skills, maybe. Therewere a few bodies covered by cloth and several more casualties receivingemergency first aid, plus the enormous corpse of the wyvern.

…So people had died in that battle?

Strangely, I didn’t really see any soldiers crying. Maybe they were throwingthemselves into their work to stave off any feelings of sadness.

The men I had assumed to be military engineers of some kind were workingaway with what looked like saws to dismantle the wyvern’s corpse. It was

probably difficult to satisfactorily drain all the blood out of a body that large,which explained why the workers were splattered with red.

Spotting Zena, now in the care of some guards, the mounted knight whoseemed to be the commander trotted over on horseback. I had never seen ahorse up close like this before. Its breath stank as it snorted wildly through itsnose.

Stop moving your face toward me with those cutesy eyes. That’s okay onlywhen pretty women do it, got it?

“Zena! You’re all right!”

“Yes, thanks to this person here. This is Satou, a very agile peddler.” Zena’sintroduction seemed to include some unnecessary details, but I bit back anysharp remarks.

“Then we’re in your debt. It would be terrible if we’d lost a precious magicsoldier.”

That made it sound like losing her wouldn’t have been a big deal if she wasn’t amagic soldier, but judging by the grins of the people around us, it was probablyjust a joke.

The armored woman who’d interrogated me earlier whispered into thecaptain’s ear, explaining what I had told her before, and they asked me what I’dseen at the Soldiers’ Stronghold.

Apparently, the group had been sent out from Seiryuu City the day before as asurvey team to determine whether the “starfall” had caused anything strange.

Seiryuu City

Satou here. There’s something exhilarating about talking to a woman,isn’t there? Ever since my girlfriend dumped me, I’ve been investing alittle too much money in a shop that I frequent with Mr. Tubs where youcan pay to have pretty girls drink with you.

All the incapacitated soldiers, including Zena, were loaded onto a wagon to bebrought back to Seiryuu City. Thanks to her intervention, I was able to join themas well.

Aside from Zena and me, the city-bound wagon also carried the heavilyarmored soldier named Iona—who, when she took off her armor, was even moreattractive than I’d imagined—and five or so other young soldiers.

The young woman named Lilio and the other female bodyguard stayed behindwith the rest of the troops. Apparently, they were going to wait for more carts topick up the bodies of fallen soldiers and the wyvern, then return to theirscheduled patrol.

The severely injured had already gone ahead, so no one riding with us had anylife-threatening injuries. The coachman was a civilian manservant.

Man, I was glad they didn’t ask me to drive this thing.

The wagon was moving slowly out of consideration for the wounded soldiers,but that meant you could jog just as fast. The city was about ten miles away, butit would probably take three or four hours to get there.

A few carts carrying the fallen soldiers and the remains of the wyvern passedby us. “Do they use the wyvern carcass for something?” I asked.

“Yes, they do. They process the hide to make cloaks and leather armor andsuch, which apparently sell at a high price, since they’re so sturdy. Some traderseven buy the fangs and bones.”

“Though now if there’s meat in the army’s rations, one can’t help but suspectit’s wyvern.”

“Doesn’t taste good?” I asked.

In response, the two soldiers only looked at each other and exchanged wrysmiles.

The man driving the wagon replied in their place. “It’s disgusting. Almost asbad as rats! It’s tough as wolf tendons and smells like a striped raccoon dog.Anyone who’s eaten it once ain’t gonna give it a second try, that’s for sure!”

“Is it really that bad, sir?”

“There’s no need to call a manservant like me ‘sir,’ young’un. But I hear thatawful stuff is a right feast for west quarter dwellers and slaves. When thebutcher gets a wyvern carcass, it’s like a festival outside the shop.”

Slaves? There was a slavery system here?

Nobody was going to try to enslave me or anything once we got to the city,right? A bit concerned, I took a look at the map as the conversation continued.

Seiryuu City’s population was about 80 percent citizens and 20 percent slaves.Only a small fraction of the citizens were wealthy people like nobles andmerchants or priests and priestesses. But the first thing I noticed as I looked atthe map was that the inhabitants weren’t all humans.

Ordinary humans, who were referred to as “humanfolk,” made up about 90percent of the population. The other 10 percent were fairyfolk, like dwarves andgnomes, and beastfolk, like cat-and dog-people. I always thought elves were thequintessential fantasy race, but surprisingly, there was only one elf here.

I saw a lot of races I’d never heard of, too—rare sorts like white-wing folk andleopard-people. I was surprised to find lizardfolk among them, too. Wasn’t thatthe same kind of creature that attacked me yesterday?

I’d assumed all these races coexisted peacefully, like in that Western gameseries Airrim, but aside from the fairyfolk, it looked like most of the demi-humansin the city were slaves.

There was even one individual called a “hell demon” living there. Overall, it

seemed like a pretty diverse country.

“Look, you can see the city now!”

“Wow, is that the outer wall?”

“Yes! It’s so solid, we don’t even worry about wyvern attacks!”

The wall was certainly impressive. It looked like it encircled the entire city—somaybe it was more apt to call the place a fortress city.

Made up of enormous stones, the city wall seemed at least a hundred feet tall,judging by the nearby trees. According to the information on the map, it wasabout ten feet thick, too, with passageways inside. There were towers aroundone hundred and fifty feet tall, where I could see soldiers positioned as sentries.

“Do you know anyone in Seiryuu City, Satou?” Zena asked, probably bringing itup because we were now in sight of the city.

“Oh, no, unfortunately. I was planning to just find an inn for now.”

“In that case, I suggest the Gatefront Inn,” Iona said. “It’s a bit expensive,since it’s right by the city’s main gate, but it’s famous for its cleanliness and goodfood.”

“That sounds great.” Cleanliness was definitely a must. Back in college, I’dtraveled abroad on the cheap, staying in hostels, and I didn’t want any morebugs for roommates. Besides, trying new food was always one of the best partsof traveling. I’d bet anything there would be rye bread and salt-rich soups andother fantasy cuisine.

That being said, as I was talking with Zena and Iona, a pair of male soldiers withrelatively minor-looking injuries were boring holes into me with their eyes. Theydidn’t come over—maybe the jolting of the wagon had irritated their bonefractures—but I still would have preferred that they give it a rest with the openlyjealous glares.

If looks could kill, I’m pretty sure I would’ve been dead two or three times over.

“Well then, Satou, please do stay at the Gatefront Inn. I want to come andthank you later.”

“Oh, there’s no need for all that.”

“Yes, there is! I swear on the Marienteil family name that I will find a way tothank you!”

…She’d seemed like such a refined girl at first, but Zena was actually prettyintense. Even desperate, perhaps. If I were around her age, I’d definitely begetting the wrong idea about her feelings toward me here.

Feeling a bit guilty about the injured soldiers, I promised to stay at theGatefront Inn and parted ways with her at the entrance to the city.

“Over here, please, Satou,” Iona called, leading me toward a guard stationadjoined to the main gate. “Is the knight Sir Thorne here, by chance?” she askeda young sentry outside the station. The young man seemed flustered at beingaddressed by such a beautiful woman, and his face burned bright red as hecalled inside loudly for the knight in question.

Iona thanked the sentry with an even expression and walked inside the stationas comfortably as if it was the front door to her own home. I followed timidlybehind her, like a duckling sticking close to its mother.

It was a bit gloomy inside; there was only one tiny window for light.

“It’s been a while, Sir Thorne.”

“Oh, if it isn’t little Miss Iona! Is your old man still obsessed with his roses?”

“You know I hate it when you say things like that, Thorne.”

Clearly, this was an acquaintance of Iona’s. At almost six and a half feet tall,the enormous Sir Thorne could have been a half-giant.

“Oh-ho! A younger man, eh? Nice clothes, but he’s kinda scrawny. You’ll haveto put some meat on those bones if you want to be strong enough to protect ourIona!”

Oh geez, it’s not like that at all! But I was in no place to reply with a huge handsmacking me on the back. I mean, sure, Iona was beautiful, and I’d be lying if Isaid I didn’t find her attractive, but I don’t do well with the strong, calculatingtypes. Besides, she’d never give me the time of day even if I tried, so my opinionwas irrelevant from the get-go.

“You misunderstand. This young man gave Zena some help earlier. He seems to

have lost his identification papers, so I’d like you to reissue them.”

“Ah, with the Yamato stone?”

“Yes, if you wouldn’t mind.”

I wish they’d stop using keywords I don’t understand. The room Sir Thorne ledme to contained what looked like a twenty-inch LCD.

“Right this way, sonny!” Thorne beckoned from behind the slate, and I wentover to stand beside him. “Just to be sure, you’re not a wanted criminal or athief, are you?”

“No, of course not.” I’m just an ordinary guy, no crimes here.

“All right, put your hands on top of the Yamato stone and tell it your name.”

Was this a magical tool for checking someone’s criminal record? I did as I wastold and put my palms down on the slate. Still, where did the name “Yamato”come from? Outer space?

My name… Ichirou Suzuki? No, I had better say my character’s name.

“Satou.”

That seemed to be the right choice. A faint white light shone from the slate,and words started to appear. I had never seen this alphabet before, but I wasable to read it with my “Shigan Language” skill.

Crap, is it going to show my status screen? If they find out I’m level 310, itmight cause an uproar… Wait, huh? That’s odd.

“You can take your hands off now, son.”

The information shown was very different from my own status screen.

Race: human

Age: fifteen

Level: 1

Affiliation: none

Job: none

Class: commoner

Title: none

Skills: none

Bounty: none

This was more like my stats from before I’d leveled up. An idea occurred to me,and I opened up the “networking info” screen from the menu. I was right: Theinformation on this screen was what the Yamato stone had displayed.

In the original game, that screen had just been for writing a profile that otherusers could see with tags, but this version was much more detailed. And youcould probably change the contents manually, since each item had a drop-downbox with the original value as the upper limit. You could even set your name,title, and skill to “none.”

I could understand having no title or skill, but what was the point of makingyour name “none”? Telling everyone you didn’t want to socialize, maybe?

“Hmm! So you’ve come of age, have you? I thought you were younger. Youmust still live a sheltered life to be level one as an adult.”

Huh? He didn’t think I was an adult? Oh, right… I’d noticed earlier that I lookedlike I did when I started high school, hadn’t I?

So fifteen was the age of majority in this country. I checked the information onthe map with a perfunctory reply to the knight. Sure enough, most people whowere level 1 were under the age of ten. When I looked up fifteen-year-olds, mostwere around level 3. So was everyone going to assume I had the life experienceof a ten-year-old?

As my mind wandered, Sir Thorne was using a quill pen to fill out a form withthe information from the Yamato stone with surprisingly delicate handwriting.Finally, he wrote, VERIFIED BY: SEIRYUU COUNTY VASSAL SIR THORNE at the bottom andstamped a seal above my name.

“Don’t lose it this time, got it? The reissuing fee is one silver.”

The certificate was issued on what looked like Japanese paper. I was a littledisappointed that it wasn’t on parchment, to be honest. Accepting the paperfrom him, I reached into my pocket and pulled one Shigan silver coin out of

Storage. I had at least one hundred of every kind of coin in the Shigan currency,so change shouldn’t be a problem.

“What, so you keep your money in your pockets? At least you’re cautiousabout that. Make sure you keep your ID there from now on, too!” Thorne turnedtoward Iona. “And the city tax?” he asked. Was there a tax just for entering thecity?

Apparently, the fee was normally one large copper for commoners, butaccording to Iona, they were going to waive the tax as thanks for saving Zena.

“Take this, too. It’s your visa token. It’s good for ten days. If you want to staylonger, come back to this station or to the town hall in the central ward andapply for an extension. They’ll take care of the process at either place for threecopper coins.”

The object he gave me was a wooden tag with some information branded intoit: a few numbers and the crest that I’d also seen over the main gate. Thenumbers seemed to indicate the length of my stay; of course, they wereunfamiliar symbols, not any numerals I knew. One character seemed tosymbolize one number, so it was probably safe to assume they worked the sameway as Arabic numerals.

“If it expires and you don’t apply for an extension, the guards can fine you asilver. And if you can’t pay that, you might end up as a slave, so be careful.” SirThorne’s warning sounded well practiced. I figured I’d better not forget it.

Still, getting sentenced to slavery over an expired visa? That’s pretty harsh! Itreminded me of the headhunters picking up homeless people in the Edo periodin Japan.

I put my visa token and ID papers into my Garage Bag. Naturally, once theywere safely out of sight, I stowed them away in Storage.

“Thank you very much.”

“Think nothing of it, my boy. If you have any problems, go see the generalmerchant next to the guard station for advice. It won’t be free, but he’ll do youright.”

With my business taken care of, I thanked the pair courteously and made to

leave the station.

“Satou, I’m terribly sorry, but I have further business with Sir Thorne, so this iswhere we part ways. That building there with the yellow signboard is the inn wetalked about, so I doubt you’ll get lost on the way.”

I looked in the direction Iona was pointing. Naturally, I was searching for alarge billboard like you’d see in Japan, but I couldn’t find anything of the sort.Upon closer inspection, though, I saw a tiny wooden plank hanging from thedoorway of a building that just looked like a house. Was that the “signboard”?

I thanked Iona and headed toward the inn. I could hear her talking with Thorneinside the station as I walked away, but since it didn’t seem to have anything todo with me, I didn’t bother listening in.

A City Stroll

Satou here. Back in college, whenever I’d saved up enough money frommy part-time job, I’d go on trips with my group of friends or my girlfriend.When you go abroad once in a while, you really start to appreciateJapan’s good points. I’ve never been anywhere with better service orcleanliness than Japan.

With a big stretch, I took in all the exotic sights and sounds of the street.

I hadn’t really noticed before, since I’d been taken straight to the guardstation, but there was a semicircle of open space between the gate and thestreet with a radius of about sixty feet. I wasn’t sure if this clearing was to keepthe bustle of traffic going in and out of the main gate from interfering with therest of the town or more for military purposes.

The city was made largely of stone, like the kind you’d see in a movie or aWestern game. Even the passersby looked like designs I’d seen in game docs:men in tunics, women in old-fashioned dresses.

It seemed like there was a large wealth gap here, too; I saw quite a few peoplewearing patchwork dresses or stained shirts and ripped trousers.

Next, I turned my attention to the buildings. From where I was standing, mostof them seemed to be two-story stone buildings. I did see some that looked likewood or brick, though.

A tower peeked out beyond the roofs of the houses with a windmill attachedto its pointed steeple; maybe it was a flour mill or something? All my knowledgeabout this stuff came from games and novels, so I wasn’t sure. I planned to stayhere in the city for a while, so I’d check it out later.

The street stretched out before me, continuing straight to the inner wall that Icould just barely make out in the distance. The road itself was about twenty feetacross. On the other side of the inner wall was what looked like a lord’s keep.

Clearly, Seiryuu City was a bigger fortress city than I’d thought.

It was an incredible sight! As a game programmer, there was no way I couldnot get excited about a fantasy scene like this.

But was this spectacle really all part of a dream? I couldn’t shake the doubtfrom my mind. I certainly didn’t have the design sense to come up with such arealistic cityscape. Anything my mind would conceive would probably have acheaper look, with vague details.

If this really is a dream, it must be somebody else’s.

And if so, whoever’s dreaming this definitely likes games. I hope they don’t doanything to mess with my sanity stat—

My thoughts were abruptly cut off when something soft and warm suddenlyassaulted my arm.

“Hey, you there! You just came from the front gate, right? Right?! Instead oflooking around with your mouth hanging open, you should come over to our innif you haven’t chosen one yet! I’ll throw in a free meal or something!”

“Wh-what…?”

“Don’t worry about it! I can’t say we’re cheaper than the competition, butwe’ve got clean beds and tasty food that’s made with love!”

Hastily closing the map screen, I was greeted by the reddish-brown eyes of avery cute girl. A thin ribbon tied her tawny-brown hair into a side ponytail. Shewas too close for me to see her outfit very well, but she looked to be aroundmiddle school age; the AR display confirmed that she was thirteen, although thedisproportionately ample chest pushing into me suggested otherwise.

Still hanging onto my arm, the enthusiastic girl dragged me along. Maybe shewas a barker or tout for attracting customers—something you rarely saw inJapan these days outside of school festivals.

At any rate, before I knew it, she was dragging me into some kind of barroom.It seemed a little dark, although that might have been because we’d just enteredfrom the bright street. A glance at the sign above the door told me this was thevery place I’d been heading for—the Gatefront Inn.

“Mom! Mommm! I got us a guest!”

“Goodness, you’re so pushy! You shouldn’t harass people like that.” A well-built older woman emerged from the kitchen, scolding the young lady as shecame up to the counter.

Considering the soft warmth my arm had been treated to, I had no complaintsabout the aggressive advertising. Yep, it was worth it all right!

The older woman at the counter had a lovely face, even if her figure had arather large presence. She might be around thirty or so…? In that case, it wasprobably rude to call her an older woman, then. Let’s call her the landladyinstead.

An AR display popped up beside the landlady’s face when I looked at her. Thisdream just kept using game mechanics. The info screen that appeared wassimilar to the one I’d seen on the Yamato stone earlier, but the fields were a littledifferent. This one seemed to show more specific information.

It made sense that this woman was the mother of the lovely young girl, givenher beautiful face, but why did she have to be so chubby? A few pounds less, andshe’d be exactly my type. I mean, I guess she’s already out, since she’s married.Adultery never ends well, so no thank you!

“Hmm? Are you planning to spend the night? You don’t have any bags…”

“My packhorse got startled by the starfall the other day and ran off… Luckily, Istill had my coin purse, so I managed to make it to town.”

“Oh, that must have been rough! Well, we charge one large copper per nightor a small copper for the large communal room. If you eat your meals at the bar,we’ll throw in a dish for free as a special deal for overnight customers.”

Hmm. I don’t know the standard cost for inns here, but if I want to figure outthe exchange rate between large coppers and silvers, I should try paying for tendays in advance. The landlady seemed like she’d be pretty good at math, so Idoubted she’d mess up the calculation.

“Well then, I’ll pay for ten days’ stay, please.”

“Certainly! That’ll be two silvers, then.”

I pulled two silver coins out of my pocket and handed them to the landlady. Sofive large coppers made one silver. If that wasn’t right, she probably would’vementioned knocking off an extra copper as a favor or something.

Now that I’d secured a place at the inn, I definitely wanted something to eat.All I’d had the day before was a protein bar, so I was getting pretty hungry.

“Ma’am, would I be able to take my meal now? I’d like to eat something simpleif I can…”

“Well, if you want hot food, you’re either a few hours too early or too late. Thekitchen fire’s died out for the moment, but I do have a premade quiche I can fixup for you, if you’d like.”

A quiche, huh? I hadn’t had that since I ate at a diner last month. Consideringthe town’s European-fantasy setting, I’d been expecting something more like ryebread or salty soup, but I guess I’d assumed too much.

“I’ll take that, then, please.”

“Certainly. Please have a seat; it’ll be right out. Martha, could you take ourguest’s information for the register?”

The landlady returned to the kitchen, and Martha appeared in her place,pitter-pattering up to me with a string-bound logbook like a clerk in a periodpiece.

Martha’s outfit, which I hadn’t been able to get a look at before, consisted of awhite blouse, a light-orange skirt, and a brown corset-style vest. Her shoes weremade of leather and looked like soft hallway slippers.

“Yes, ma’am! Sir, if you could give me your name, please!”

“Satou.”

“Mr. Satou… Got it. Now your age and occupation, please!”

I had to stop myself from saying I was a twenty-nine-year-old programmer. Mystatus screen said I was fifteen, and so should the ID papers I got earlier, so…“I’m a peddler, fifteen years old.”

“Whoa, you’re older than me?! I figured we were around the same age!”Despite her surprise, Martha swiftly took down my info on the straw paper of

the logbook.

Apparently, I didn’t need to show my ID for inn registry. Right as Marthafinished writing everything down, ready to start some kind of idle conversation,the landlady reappeared from the kitchen with a plate of food.

“Thanks for waiting! The side dish is on the house.”

Maybe it was just my imagination, but the landlady seemed to make a point ofobstructing my view of Martha as she put down my food on the table.

Two slices of quiche sat on the plate, along with a small bowl of what lookedlike pickled bok choy. The slices were generous, and there was a wooden fork toeat them with.

The lone copper piece I paid for the meal felt like a cheap ten-yen coin.

Now then, it was time to dig in to my first full meal in over a day. I took a biteslowly, savoring the taste. The quiche was dense and heavy, made with plenty ofpotatoes. The other ingredients consisted of spinachlike leafy greens,mushrooms, and…red onions maybe?

Even though it was cold, it was tastier than I’d expected. I did think it could’veused a bit more jerky, but it would be wrong to complain about a meal preparedespecially for me outside of the usual kitchen hours.

“Mom’s quiches are even better when they’re fresh from the oven!”

“Martha! You haven’t cleaned up after those cowardly merchants who left thismorning, have you?”

“Oh, sorry, not yet!”

“Then what are you lollygagging around for?”

“All right, all right, I’m going. See you later, Mr. Satou!” Martha headedupstairs to do her cleaning.

“What did you mean by ‘cowardly merchants’?”

“Ahh, well… After these guests witnessed yesterday’s starfall, they were in atizzy all night, going on about ‘a demon lord picking a fight with the dragons ofthe valley!’ They left first thing this morning.”

She lost business because of me… That was a pretty bad thing I did.

Wait. More important, there was a word in there I don’t like the sound of…

“There’s a ‘demon lord’ around here?”

“Well, there was. Though the destined hero defeated the last one sixty orseventy years ago. And I haven’t heard anything about one being resurrectedanywhere.”

So there was a “demon lord”…and a “hero.” Good thing that was taken careof. If this was a game, progressing through events as the protagonist woulddefinitely end up with the demon lord getting resurrected. It was probably bestnot to stick my nose into it, poking around for more information.

“Besides, in the six hundred years since the Shiga Kingdom was founded, noone has ever seen a demon lord in Seiryuu City or the neighboring counties. Evenif it did attack, it’d start with Labyrinth City, I’m sure. And that’s on the oppositeside of the kingdom, so we have no cause for worry.”

If this was a game, I feel like this conversation would definitely raise an eventflag for an attack.

“Around here, we’re far more worried about wyverns. They can swoop downand carry away young farmhands, packhorses, even children. Our army is strong,so Seiryuu City is safe… But outside the city walls, people working in the fieldsare in constant fear of an attack.”

Those things are scarier than I thought.

“But the dragons don’t attack people?”

“Haven’t you heard the legends? Dragons are lethargic and lazy. They sleep inthe Valley of Dragons and seldom come out. The last time one appeared was twoyears ago, and the time before that was before I was born!

“It was terrible, apparently. They say a black dragon attacked and ate all thegoats and sheep…”

She mentioned only livestock, so did that mean there weren’t that manyhuman casualties? I wanted to talk about it a little more, but the landladyreturned to the kitchen.

Before finishing off the quiche, I decided to try the side dish. The pickled stuffin the bowl turned out to be cabbage, not bok choy. I had mistaken it because ofthe whitish color, but the taste reminded me of the sauerkraut I had tried in ashop specializing in German beer.

The topping sprinkled over it was a finely chopped herb, maybe something likeparsley. Returning from her cleaning, Martha informed me that if I mixed it intothe cabbage before eating it, it would cut the sourness.

Wait, was she done cleaning already? It hadn’t even been ten minutes!

But since she was just sitting around while I ate, I asked her if she knew anyshops where I could buy some everyday supplies. I could have just checked mymap, but I thought it was important to communicate with the locals.

“Huh? Supplies? There are street stalls in the east quarter, so you couldprobably buy them there. But as long as it’s nothing too complicated, we canhave our maid buy them for you!”

“Thank you, but I’d like to get a change of clothes and underwear and thingslike that, so I think I’d better go myself.” It was tempting to let them treat melike a celebrity, but I was a bit reluctant to have a stranger buying me underwear.

“Hmm… I know there are stalls on East Street that sell secondhand clothes…”

“Secondhand? I don’t know…”

“If you want new stuff, your best bet is to get it tailor-made on Center Street,but that’ll be pricey!”

“Is there anywhere that sells new clothes that’re manufactured instead oftailor-made?”

“What’s ‘manufactured’…? Oh, you mean like premade clothes? You use somebig words for someone so young. They sell those on Teputa Avenue, but they’restill pretty expensive.”

Teputa Avenue, huh? I opened the map to search for it. It looked a little farfrom the inn. For now, I marked it on the map with a pin.

“Thank you. I’ll take a stroll around the street stalls and Teputa Avenue, then.”

“Oh, I know! How about I show you around? I can, can’t I, Mom? Especially

since there aren’t a lot of customers today!”

Oh, that would be nice. Shopping with a local as my guide sounded exciting.Martha got permission from her mother, on the condition that she’d be back intime to help prepare for dinner.

Still, guest or not, I found it odd that she’d so easily let her daughter go out onthe town with a man she didn’t know. Where was her sense of danger? Wait…Maybe she had assessed (correctly) that I wouldn’t hurt a fly. Yeah, that wasprobably it.

Even back in high school, a girl I was close to was always telling me what agood person I am… Okay, no—let’s not go dredging up traumatic memories.

Martha brought me to a section of East Street that was lined with all kinds ofstreet stalls for about a third of a mile. Each stall had a space of only abouttwenty square feet. Maybe it was my imagination, but I could swear there was afaint scent of soy sauce in the air.

“A lot of these stalls are closed…”

“Oh, that’s because food vendors and farmers from the villages nearby usuallydo business here. They generally close around noon. Come evening, a lot of thefood carts set up in the plaza instead.”

Most of the clothing vendors were about midway down the street, so weheaded in that direction, idly browsing the other stalls as we went.

Some of the ones selling foodstuffs were still open, it turned out. Standingbeside Martha as she admired some carved wooden accessories, I listened withgreat interest to a conversation between the proprietor of the stall next doorand an older woman shopping there.

“How much for three of these gabo fruits?”

“Three of ’em would be two penny coins.”

“What? Two pennies? Surely one’s enough.”

“At that price you’d be bleedin’ me dry, ma’am! How about four for two?”

“Five for two!”

“Oh, all right. That’ll do. Only because you’re so pretty, y’hear?”

So haggling is standard here, huh? Man, I’m used to buying things forwhatever the price tag says… That’s kind of a pain.

Incidentally, a “gabo fruit” appeared to be a root crop not unlike a red, fist-sizepumpkin.

I was drawn to the unusual term penny coin, so I took one out of Storage tohave a look. It was a square brass coin that weighed only a fraction of an ounce,though mine was rusted over.

Martha held a small hair ornament shaped like a water bird up to her hair andturned to me. “What do you think? Does it suit me?”

“Yeah, it looks great.”

“Which one do you think looks better?”

Heh-heh-heh… I knew she’d ask that!

I’d learned all too well in college how to deal with this. You can’t just blurt yourhonest opinion. You have to figure out which one she’s already leaning toward,based on her initial reactions, and go with that one. Otherwise, the process willjust get dragged out even more.

“The light-blue one, I think. It goes great with your hair color.”

“You think so, too?”

“I’ll sell that one to ya for three copper coins,” the shopkeeper announcedquickly, sensing that he might have a customer.

“I’m sorry; I don’t have enough pocket money today… I’ll try to come and buyit at the next harvest festival.”

Huh? I’d expected her to try to hint that I should buy it for her, but I guessshe’s too modest for that. Thanks to extensive experience with my collegegirlfriend, I was already prepared to pay for it. I also wanted to give haggling atry, so I decided to get it for her as thanks for guiding me through the city.

“Any chance you’d take one copper?”

“If I did, I’d barely break even! Make it two coppers, at least.”

As I started to negotiate, Martha tugged on my sleeve, seeming worried that Iwas spending money on her. “Wait, you don’t have to—” But I waved her off.

From what I’d seen so far, I was fairly certain that five pennies made onecopper, and four coppers made one large copper.

“How about one copper and two pennies?”

“Make it a copper and four.”

“A copper and three?”

“All right. Sold.”

I pulled the right amount from my pocket and paid the man. He handed me thehair ornament, and I affixed it to Martha’s hair for her. It felt like going aroundto stalls at a festival with a younger cousin or something.

> Skill Acquired: “Haggling”

> Skill Acquired: “Estimation”

> Skill Acquired: “Negotiation”

For my success in bargaining, I was rewarded with several new skills. Theyseemed useful, so I enhanced all three with some skill points.

“Hee-hee… Thank you, Mr. Satou!”

“Not at all! It’s my way of thanking you for showing me around.” I replied toMartha’s shy thanks as noncommittally as possible. If I wanted to flirt with her,I’d go on to add a few compliments or something, but again, she’s a little girl andI’m not a creep, so I left it at that.

Since I had activated the “Estimation” skill, looking at a product would nowallow me to see the cost displayed in an AR box beside it, in the form of whitetext showing a range like 2~4 copper coins. That was probably the estimatedprice range.

Anyway, there were an awful lot of children working around here.

“What’s wrong, Mr. Satou?”

“Oh, I was just thinking about how many kids there are…”

“They’re mostly servants and maids who get paid in tips.”

“Really? Wow, that’s quite the work ethic for being so young.”

“Huh? It’s normal.” Martha seemed genuinely confused by how impressed Iwas. I guess the standard age of employment was really low here.

Ooh! That must be—!

Peeking out through a gap in all the hustle and bustle of the marketplace was apair of lightly twitching cat ears.

Beastfolk! It had to be! It seemed like they mostly lived in the west quarter, so Ihadn’t seen one in person yet.

Unfortunately, a sudden shout put a damper on my excitement.

“Dirty little animals! Whaddaya think yer doin’ in the east quarter?!”

A blond young man in a tunic aimed a kick at a little dog-girl struggling under aheavy burden, and her bundle of firewood clattered to the ground as she fell.Her ears flattened in fear as she looked up at the man who’d kicked her. The cat-girl with her came running over immediately, bowing and apologizing fervently tohim.

I couldn’t stand by and watch this.

“Do you have a problem with these girls?” In an uncharacteristic move, Ibutted in before processing what I was doing.

“Huh?! Are these your slaves? Get some leashes on ’em and put ’em back inthe west quarter!”

To be honest, I didn’t have much of a plan, but luckily, the other guy quicklyretreated. I gathered up the dog-girl’s scattered sticks.

“Th-the firewood…”

“P-please…g-give…”

The two little girls looked up at me from the ground. Did they think I was goingto take away their firewood? The dog-girl was stammering so badly from fear,she couldn’t finish her request for me to give it back. I took a piece of string outof my bag and tied up the sticks as they’d been before, then handed them back.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“We’re…fine.”

“Oh, good. There are a lot of people on the main street, so be careful.”

The two thanked me profusely as they left. When I turned back, Martha wasgiving me a strange look.

“What is it?”

“You were so kind to those beastfolk…”

Hmm? Why not? They’re cute, aren’t they? Sure, they need a wash and ahaircut, but I’m sure they’ll grow up to be lovely young women.

“Do people in the city hate them that much?”

“Well, yeah. Apparently, beastfolk used to attack or even kill hunters andvillagers coming to sell produce.”

So they’re thought of as thieves and savages, I guess?

“Oh, hey—look over there!” Maybe she was just trying to change the subject,but Martha quickly dragged me over to what had caught her interest. I pushedthe beastfolk to the back of my mind and looked where she was pointing. Smallanimals in cages were up for sale.

The vendor was a man in a fur coat who appeared to be a hunter. Some kind ofhatchet hung from his waist.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen many people walking around with swords—only guards and young delinquents. All I’d noticed other than that were a fewdagger-length blades hanging from some belts. Swords are heavier than theylook, so I bet carrying them at your waist would drag down your clothes and giveyou sore shoulders.

Martha and I both commented on the animals in the cages, but our opinionswere at odds.

“They’re pretty cute.”

“They look delicious!”

Embarrassed that she’d prioritized her stomach, Martha cleared her throat,then grabbed my arm and led me to the next stall. So I guess we’re pretendingthat didn’t happen.

By the time we reached the clothing area, I’d already bought mugs, a comb,soap, and some “tooth-polishing sticks.” These were some sort of dried plantstem that you were supposed to gnaw on while rinsing with water in order toclean your teeth; there were no toothbrushes or floss here.

I didn’t see anything made of glass, either. The closest I could find were waresmade of gems or crystal.

By now I’d gotten the hang of shopping here. Vendors didn’t like it if I triedbuying something right away at its estimated price, I realized after three storesor so. Instead, I had to start the negotiations at about half the going rate, thenarrive at the price I wanted after three or four rounds of haggling. Man, I didn’tmind doing that every once in a while, but every single time was a pain.

In the central part of East Street, we saw a crowd of people standing in theplaza.

“Pious men and women of Seiryuu City! The day of the demon lord’sresurrection is nigh! You all must have witnessed it. The starfall was surely aportent of terrible things to come! Now is the time to devote yourselves to thetemple of the benevolent Zaicuon!”

In the center, a rotund, self-important-looking man of around thirty years oldwas heatedly addressing the crowd, in garb reminiscent of a Shinto priest.Partway through, when he started going into devotion, the crowd began losinginterest and dispersing.

“What’s going on?”

“That’s the high priest of Zaicuon Temple. He must be desperate becausethey’ve been losing followers.”

“Oh? Did they do something?”

“No, no. Everyone’s leaving because the temple can’t do anything.”

My confusion must have shown on my face, because Martha gave more

details. “See, Zaicuon Temple doesn’t have anyone who can use Holy Magic. Ifyou’re going to make offerings at a temple, you’re better off with, say, Parion orGarleon. At least they can heal you if you’re wounded.”

I see. I guess you had to be practical in a tough world like this. Such an attitudecould hardly be called faith, but I guess people would inevitably flock to thereligion with real-world benefits.

The fat priest was getting desperate, grabbing a citizen who was trying to walkaway. The lower-ranked priests around him tried to stop it, but I didn’t want toget involved, so I ignored them, and we left the plaza.

The garment area had a lot of places to repair or resize clothing, in addition tosecondhand shops. I finally found a stall with new clothing amid all the usedclothes, so I bought a good amount of underwear there.

While I was at it, I picked out some nice, soft-looking towels. To my milddisappointment, they were really just two pieces of cloth stitched together; still,it was better than having nothing at all, so I bought some in a few different sizes.

Compared to food and lodging, clothing was pretty expensive.

“Look, Mr. Satou! It’s a dragon mask!”

Martha picked up a carved wooden mask from the stall’s display and held it infront of her face. There were also smooth silver masks, white masks, and all sortsof others for sale.

“People wear these at the harvest festival. This silver kind was quite popularlast year.”

Huh… I picked up one of the silver masks. It looked to be the type that youattach with string.

“What do you think, lad? That dragon mask is s’posed to bring peace and goodhealth,” prompted the shopkeeper, a woman who seemed to be in her twenties.Her shirt was cut in a very low V-neck, so it was difficult to find a proper place tolook; she wasn’t really my type or even all that attractive, but it was still hard totear my eyes away.

Trying to find something else to look at, my eyes fell on a wig for sale, beside

the silver mask. “Do people wear these with the dragon masks?”

“Well, the only ones who wear dragon masks are the actors who play thedragons. The black wig here is for the actor playing the hero, and this blond oneis for other parts, like the princess and her attendants.”

So this festival had a lot of different parts to be played. In the end, I couldn’tresist her recommendation, so I bought the silver dragon mask and the blondwig.

On Teputa Avenue, there were shops selling all kinds of clothing andaccessories.

First, I bought a waterproof mantle with a hood for rainy weather at a shop fortravelers. I also bought several sets of durable-looking shirts and trousers.

I picked up some footwear, too: a pair of waterproof shoes for travel, someboots that looked like they’d match my robes, and sandals. Most of the sandalsthey sold were the type that you tie up with cord, ancient Greece–style, but Iwanted slip-ons, so I got a cobbler inside the shop to make some to order for me.

While I was waiting for my sandals, I found a bag that looked just like myGarage Bag. Thinking I’d struck gold, I braced myself and checked the marketprice—but this was just a normal leather bag, much to my disappointment.

Still, it looked like it could serve as a facsimile of my Garage Bag, so I bought itanyway. The color and stitching were a little different, but as long as nobodylooked at them side by side, it should serve.

I’d gone a little overboard with my shopping. I wondered if it would be toomuch to carry. “Excuse me… Is there any way I could ask you to hold on to mypurchases for me while I’m shopping?”

“Yes, of course. If you like, we can even have them delivered for you.”

“Oh, yes please. I’m staying at the Gatefront Inn, under the name Satou.”

Had they offered because I bought so much? What great service.

A boy of about ten, maybe the son of one of the shopkeepers, accepted thebundle of clothes from the clerk and set out to deliver them.

In the next shop, I picked out some clothes to wear downtown. The robe I wasin was a top-quality enchanted item, but judging by the clothes for sale and theoutfits I’d seen around town, its design seemed a little old-fashioned.

“How about this robe here? It’s very dignified.”

“It’s a little big…”

“What do you think of this doublet, then?”

The two salespeople, both women of about thirty, kept following me aroundwith suggestions that leaned more toward the most expensive items than theones that would suit me best. I didn’t exactly mind that they were pressing just abit too close to me in a possible attempt to seduce me into buying, but thedizzying intensity of their perfume made the situation half as enjoyable.

“Hey, Mr. Satou, I think this doublet here would look nice, don’t you?”

“Oh, it’s very nice. The orange lining is a little too much for me, though.”

“Don’t worry—the color will fade after two or three years.”

Two or three years?! I thought incredulously, but maybe that kind of thing wasnormal in this country. Except for suits and coats, I was used to needing newclothes after every season.

A doublet is basically a tight-fitting, waist-length padded shirt. In Seiryuu City,most doublets had a slash from the elbow to the shoulder where you could seethe inner cloth. On others, the slash went down the whole garment.

From what I’d seen in the city so far, this sort of apparel seemed to be a

favorite among flashy young men.

“This color over here is very in this year!”

“Oh yes, I definitely recommend that color!”

Naturally, the saleswomen were pushing a doublet about three times the priceof the one Martha had found for me. None of the clothes had labels, so I had touse my “Estimation” skill, but I didn’t doubt that the display was accurate.

Not only did the garment have bizarre decorations on the shoulders, it was aparticularly nasty combination of green and pink. I firmly declined.

Yeah, I think I’m pretty much done shopping here. Tuning out the saleswomenas they complained under their breath, we moved on to the next store.

Just two buildings away, we found a shop with a variety of stylish robes. It wasbasically a menswear store, with lots of tastefully subdued clothing formerchants.

“Wow! It looks expensive, but everything’s so nice!”

“Yes, and the stitching is high quality, too. This looks promising.”

“Thank you very much. Ours may not be quite as remarkable as your Yuriha-fiber robe, sir, but we guarantee the highest quality you’ll find in ready-madeclothes.”

The shop manager, a young man, promoted his goods with genuine pride. I’dhave bought it even if he hadn’t pushed, though.

“If you’d like to have something tailor-made, sir, my parents manage amenswear shop on Center Street. I’m certain they would produce something justto your liking.”

Huh. Both generations were in the same line of work, but they had twodifferent stores? Maybe he was working in a separate location to hone hisnatural talents.

I bought a plain but stylish robe with silver embroidery and an olive-brownmerchant’s robe. Delivery was free here, too. This was starting to remind me of acertain online shopping service.

I had done all the shopping I’d planned for the day, but I was interested inseeing the menswear store the young man recommended, so Martha and Iheaded that way.

Upon entering the shop, a kindly looking, middle-aged married couple greetedus. Unlike the stores with clothes already made, very little merchandise was ondisplay. Instead, they had samples of five different suits and a wide array offabrics. A lounge area for discussing business took up the other half of the shop.

“Excuse me, but I’m looking for a heavy merchant’s robe. In a subdued color, ifpossible…”

“Welcome. Please have a seat here, and I’ll gather some fabric swatches foryou. The five sample suits on the stands over there are our current best-sellingdesigns.”

The husband guided me to the lounge and went into the back to gathersamples. Just as he left, the wife came in to replace him, carrying some kind ofblack tea.

Martha sat beside me, uncharacteristically timid as she sipped her tea.

“The weather will be getting colder soon, so I would suggest this thicker cloth.If you’re going on a journey, we could also prepare a waterproof overcoat tomatch your robe, if you’d like.”

That sounded pretty good to me. Probably.

I’m the type to buy a bunch of different-colored clothes in bulk from that hugeclothing company Uniqlo, so I ordered one of each of the five best-selling designswith matching coats. Apparently, the tailoring would take up to five days.

My order came to eight gold coins in total: pretty expensive, but I had plentyof money, so I paid without batting an eye.

“Wow, Mr. Satou! Merchants sure are rich, huh?”

“A merchant’s clothes are like a knight’s armor! I can’t be cheap aboutsomething so important.”

Oops. That sounded like an office lady who spends her life going to mixers. Inreality, I was thinking that if I wanted to go sightseeing inside the inner wall

where the wealthy people lived, I’d have to be wearing clothes to match, or I’dstand out too much.

Incidentally, the robe I was currently wearing would normally go for about onehundred gold coins. What an insane price! Just like in video games, magic robeshere were on an entirely different level of value, I guess.

The clothes would be delivered to my room at the inn when the tailoring wasdone, but they’d be using temporary stitches. I’d have to come back to the storewithin a few days to take care of any minute adjustments needed.

The couple waved good-bye as we left.

The streets in this city were a lot cleaner than I’d expect from a Europeanfantasy–style setting.

There was no animal dung to be seen and no homeless people to be found inthe alleys. There were even gutters lining shoulders of the road, complete withstone covers.

None of this would be that unusual in a game, but if this were an alternateworld instead of a dream, the country’s grasp of sanitation wasdisproportionately advanced compared to the rest of its culture.

Unlike East Street, Center Street had few street stalls and was full of regularshops. Most passersby seemed really well dressed.

On our way back, we walked by a man selling candy on the street, so Marthaand I bought some. Instead of being hard candy, it was something called “maltsyrup candy”—thin sticks with light-brown syrup stuck to the ends.

Eating it as I walked, I let my eyes roam over the people and all the wagonscoming and going along the street. There were a lot of man-and horse-drawncarriages, so I guess magic wasn’t convenient enough to entirely replacemachinery.

On that note, I also observed that most of the people pulling wagons werewearing collars.

“Are collars in fashion around here?”

“Wha…?” Martha answered around a mouthful of candy. “Oh, no, those are

slaves. The especially rebellious or delinquent ones wear ‘enslavement collars,’but the collars they’re wearing are probably just to mark them as slaves.”

I see… So that’s how it works…

At that moment, another horse-drawn carriage passed before my eyes. Likethe rest, it was moving only about as fast as a brisk walk, probably because thiswas a crowded street. In the back were ten or so girls with collars—slaves.

Two of them in particular drew my gaze. One girl, with black hair knotted bythe long journey and equally black eyes, had features that made her lookmarkedly Japanese. Most of the people I’d seen looked Northern European, sothis might have been the first Asian-looking person I’d encountered.

Since the girl’s eyes were downcast, there wasn’t some dramatic momentwhen our eyes met or anything, but I did make eye contact with the one besideher: a little girl with flowing lilac hair and the traditional Northern Europeanfeatures.

For some reason, she was gazing my way with utter astonishment. Stop it!Please don’t give me that earnest look. I can’t do anything for you… Also, I’mnot into little girls, so…sorry.

Maybe because I’d been staring at her for so long, the girl’s name and levelpopped up next to her face.

> Arisa. Level 10.

That’s a high level for such a young girl…

More information appeared beneath her level.

> Eleven years old.

> Title: Witch of the Lost Kingdom

> The Mad Princess

> Skills: Unknown

That was as far as I could read before the cart turned a corner and vanishedtoward the west quarter.

Those titles definitely spelled trouble… No, I was definitely not getting mixed

up in any of that. Not a chance!

“Welcome home, Ms. Martha!”

When we returned to the Gatefront Inn, a girl who looked like a first or secondgrader greeted us. At first I thought she might be Martha’s younger sister, but ifso, “Ms. Martha” would be an odd thing to call her. Maybe this was the maid I’dbeen told about earlier.

“Thank you, Yuni! This is Mr. Satou. He’ll be staying with us starting today.”

“Welcome back, Mr. Satou, sir! I brought your packages to your room for you.”

“Ah, thank you! That was probably an awful lot for you, wasn’t it?” I pattedlittle Yuni’s head. Despite her size, she spoke far more formally than Martha.

I wasn’t sure if tipping was customary in this country, but I handed her a pennycoin as thanks. Martha remarked, “Good for you, Yuni!” so I figured I had madethe right choice.

“Oh, right! Ms. Martha, guess what!”

“What is it?”

“Earlier, I saw a bunch of carts bringing in lots of meat!”

Yuni’s fists were clenched tightly with excitement as she drew closer toMartha, but Martha wrinkled her nose, apparently less than enthused. “Meat?Ugh, don’t tell me it was wyvern?”

“That’s right! The pieces had to be on lots of carts because they were eachthiiiis biiiig!” As she said “thiiiis,” Yuni stood on tiptoe and stretched as high asshe could to demonstrate the height, and for “biiiig” she flung her hands outsideways for the width.

Okay. This kid is too cute.

The count’s army must have finished breaking down the wyvern carcass andbrought it here.

“Why are you so excited about wyvern meat?”

“Because! When the army defeats one, the count donates some of the meat to

the orphanage! Meat! Real meat! How many months has it been, I wonder?”Yuni responded to my question like a child from an old-fashioned movie.

“I hate wyvern meat! It’s so gross. And it makes the west quarter stink…”

I guess in a fortified city like this, meat wouldn’t come around that often.Martha’s and Yuni’s reactions were probably evidence of their class differences:One could eat meat regularly while the other could not.

“Anyway, look at this, Yuni! Isn’t it cute?” As if the wyvern conversation hadnever happened, Martha showed Yuni the pin I had bought for her.

“Ooh! Yeah, it’s so teeny and pretty!”

As the two of them broke into boisterous chatting, I thought I might return tomy room, but first I decided to ask if there was a communal bath in the inn.Considering how clean the rest of the city had been, it didn’t seem that strangeto expect a bath or a sauna.

“The rich people inside the inner walls have public baths, but they’re off-limitsto us commoners. Only nobles and people wealthy enough to have houses insidecan use them.”

Close but no cigar, huh? I couldn’t believe you needed social status to get intobaths! Damn this feudal society!

“That’s too bad. Then what do folks like you do when you want to take a bath,Martha?”

“There’s a water well in the rear garden, so we bathe with that. During thewinter, we usually bathe only once a trimoon or so, since it’s so cold. Inmidwinter, we try to use hot water so we won’t catch a cold, but nobody has theluxury of bathing in hot water in this season.”

I guess getting fuel might be a problem in a fortress city like this, too. Checkingthe map, all I saw nearby was a tiny river, the source of which was undoubtedlyunderground water.

A trimoon was apparently a period of ten days; months were divided into threeparts—the first, second, and third trimoon. They didn’t have the term week inthis language, so a trimoon was the closest equivalent. They didn’t seem to have

anything like our names for the days of the week, either.

As I learned more about their society through idle chatter, some new guestsarrived. “Hey there, Martha! Do you have a room for us?”

“Welcome! Yes, of course we do!”

The new arrivals looked to be merchants: two men of around forty and oneattractive blond woman in her late twenties. Since Martha was caught up in innbusiness now, I motioned to her that I was returning to my room. Not knowingwhere it was, I asked Yuni to guide me.

My accommodations were smallish and simple, about seventy-five square feetwith a bed, a small personal table, and a chair. I asked Yuni if I was allowed torinse off here, but she said the inn preferred all bathing to be done outside, lestthe rooms get humid or musty.

Made sense, I guess.

All my purchases from the day were laid out on the bed, so I picked out achange of clothes and some bathing supplies and headed back downstairs.

As I left my room, I saw the group from before being led into theirs by Martha.The two men were sharing the same room, while the woman got her ownaccommodations. So she wasn’t married to either of them, huh?

Following Yuni’s directions, I went out through a wooden door into the reargarden, which was about 130 square feet around. The water well wasn’t far fromthe door. Rather than a pump, it utilized an old-fashioned bucket system.

Unfortunately, the only thing separating the rear garden from the smalladjacent side street was a short little hedge. There wasn’t a lot of traffic, but theoccasional person still passed by, and I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of beingon display as I bathed.

Looking around, I noticed a partition screen over by the door. Oh, so I use this?I set up the screen to shield my body from the street and started to bathe in thecold well water. The partition was only about as high as my waist, but it wouldsuffice for cover.

I rinsed the dust and grit out of my hair, then washed my body with the soap

I’d bought. It smelled surprisingly nice and felt gentle on the skin (or was thatjust because I had high stamina?).

I was starting to wish I had some shampoo, but I’d have to make do with soap.It didn’t really foam up, but it seemed to clean well enough. I was used toshampoo, so this might have been the first time I’d ever washed my hair withsoap.

I heard a creak behind me and turned my head. The back door had opened,and a woman was coming out. It was the female guest from before.

Our eyes met. She gave me a light nod, then began drawing water from thewell. Huh? Paying no mind to the fact that there was a nearly naked dudebathing right nearby, she calmly pulled up the rope. It didn’t seem like she wasdisguising her embarrassment, either—she was just totally ignoring me.

When the woman finished pouring water into the washbasin, she set up apartition, took off her clothes, and started bathing.

Huh?

Are you for real? Have you no restraint?!

There was a partition between us, but…but still…!

Every time she moved, something—well, two things, which were presumably Dcups—asserted their presence with a distinct jiggle. Of course, she was coveringthe key areas with her hands, but every once in a while…

No, no, I had to stop! I wasn’t some virgin who’d never seen a naked ladybefore! I forcibly reined in my gaze and went back to my own washing up. Comeon, lower half! Stay calm!

But when I glanced back at the woman out of the corner of my eye, she wassmirking at me!

Yep, adult women really are the best!!

…Though, according to the AR, she’s a bit younger than me.

She certainly was a sight for sore eyes, but since I was done bathing, it wasgoing to look pretty suspect if I continued hanging around for much longer. Iquickly dried myself off with my towel, but… Where do I throw away the

bathwater? There aren’t any drains or anything, are there?

“You can toss out your water in the shrubbery. I believe there’s a drainagesystem underneath.”

The woman solved my dilemma, possibly out of pity for my bizarre behavior. Ithanked her, took care of the water, and returned to my room.

You’ll have to forgive me for sneaking one last look as I went back inside. Aman’s instincts are a powerful thing.

When I got back to my room, I changed into the tasteful light-brown robe I’dpurchased earlier that day. I’d already changed into new undergarments rightafter I bathed. It was only at this point when I noticed I’d forgotten to buy socks.

I didn’t want my feet to get smelly, so I changed into sandals. Ahh…that wasbetter. I usually wore slippers when working, so wearing shoes for such a longtime was getting uncomfortable.

A tantalizing smell wafted up from downstairs, announcing it was dinnertime.

I wanted to go to the bathroom before eating. Instead of having one for eachroom, the inn had just one common bathroom. The toilet was of the old-fashioned pit-latrine variety. I had never seen one in person, not even at mygrandfather’s home in the countryside. I guess this was typical fantasy, too, in away.

Not that I was very happy about it.

After I was through with business, I looked for toilet paper, but of course therewas none to be found. I’d gotten my hopes up, since the hotel register had beenmade with paper, but I guess that was a luxury.

Looking around, I found a bundle of thin straw within arm’s length. Am Isupposed to use this?! I didn’t want to chafe my bottom, so I tore off a piece ofone of the towels I’d bought and used that. It might be a little wasteful, but nowwasn’t the time to be thrifty.

This had certainly been a baptism by fire in the ways of this new culture, but allthings considered, it was really clean, so I’d be all right using it again.

The barroom on the first floor was enveloped in delicious smells and raucous

chatter.

It was a little dark, but a number of lanterns hung from the ceiling and posts toilluminate the room, which upped the fantasy factor significantly. Very nice!

“Oh, Mr. Satou!” Martha greeted me as she bustled about among tables,carrying trays of food. “I was just wondering if I should go get you.” Shemotioned me toward an empty seat.

“Thank you. I’ll take whatever you’d recommend for dinner, please.”

“Well, you’re in luck! A huntsman just brought in some wild boar today, so Idefinitely suggest the wild boar steak. It might be a bit expensive, but it’s wellworth the price!”

“Yeah, the boar’s fantastic! You’ll regret it if you don’t give it a try, son!”

It seemed that the meat was responsible for so many customers being there;even the drunks were trying to convince me to order it. They needn’t havebothered, though—my stomach was on board the moment it heard the wordsteak.

“I’ll take the wild boar with some sort of vegetables, then, please.”

“Anything to drink?”

“Tea or fruit juice, or milk if you don’t have those.”

“Huh? All we’ve got is booze and water.”

Right. I guess this is a bar. Well, I don’t want to mess up my stomach withunboiled water…

“Then something that’s light and easy to drink, please.”

“Want some hard cider diluted with water, then? Or if you don’t mindspending a little more, watered-down mead or wine would probably tastebetter.”

Hard cider was basically fermented apple cider, right? Like wine, it could gosour easily if not preserved carefully. But mead was honey-based and a staple offantasy works besides. Come to think of it, I’d probably never had it before.

“I’ll have mead, then.”

“You got it! Okay, I’ll go put in your order right away. Sit tight!”

Martha headed to the kitchen, nimbly dodging with practiced ease thedrunkards who tried to touch her bottom as she passed. Why were there somany pervs here, wanting to grope a middle schooler…?

While I waited for my food, I casually scanned the bar. Men in merchants’robes and neatly kept tunics were cheerfully picking away at their food anddrinking some kind of light-looking beer. Ale maybe?

Something about the patrons seemed off, though.

Hmm… What was it? From a cursory glance, the tavern was indistinguishablefrom a classic fantasy-movie set.

Oh! It was the tobacco.

There were no ashtrays on the tables, nobody puffing out smoke. Only steamrising from the hot food.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen anyone with cigarettes or pipes out shopping,either. Had tobacco not reached this country?

This was perfect for a firm nonsmoker like me, but a chain-smoker like Mr.Tubs would throw in the towel after three days, no doubt about it.

Martha returned with a steaming-hot steak on her tray.

“Thanks for waiting!”

“Wow, that looks delicious.” I wasn’t just being complimentary—it really didlook great. This one meal alone was worth the price of three days’ stay at theinn.

On the main plate, a wild boar steak cut into thick cubes was accompanied bywhite piles that looked like mashed potatoes. Finely chopped basil and friedslices of garlic topped the steak, enhancing the smell of sizzling fat as it piquedmy appetite.

Beside the plate was a deep dish filled with soup that was probably consommé.Little cubes of four different kinds of vegetables were at the bottom of the bowl—orange, red, green, and yellow. Judging by the bright colors, I had no doubtthey’d taste as good as they looked.

The mead arrived nearly overflowing from a big bisque tankard. Beside it, abasket contained inch-thick slices of rye bread. At last, glorious rye bread—thestaple food of all fantasy—would be mine for the eating!

“Eat up before it gets cold!” Martha admonished me before going back to herwork, sounding amused at how I was savoring the food with my eyes.

All right, guess I’ll start with the vegetable soup. There was a tiny bit ofresistance as I sank the large wooden spoon into the soup; clearly it was prettythick. I scooped some of the fresh vegetables onto the spoon and brought it tomy mouth.

Just as I’d expected from its appearance, the soup tasted like consommé. Theingredients had been cooked perfectly—the vegetables broke apart with a singlebite, their rich flavors filling my mouth. When I swallowed the thick broth,warmth spread through my stomach. This must be a really popular dish in thewinter.

Next up was the main course: the steak. I jabbed my fork into a piece and tooka bite.

When I’d tried boar before, it had an off-puttingly funky taste, but this meatwas different. There wasn’t much fat, and it was a tiny bit tough, but once Ichewed it a little, my mouth filled with a hearty, rustic flavor that was nothinglike beef.

Before the taste left my mouth, I took a bite of the rye bread. It was a littlehard, but not as much as I’d been told. Just enough to make a fun crunchingsound as I chewed.

It was slightly sour, but when paired with the meat, it mixed with the richflavor of boar for an absolutely delicious combination. It was so good that Ifound myself reaching for the next bite before I was even done chewing.

Everything was delicious. I was pleased that this country seemed to have a lotof good food. It’d be fun to take a gourmet tour of the Shiga Kingdom.

When I had finished the full pound or so of steak, I remembered my mead andtook a big gulp. It was a honeyed yellow alcoholic beverage. I had expected asimilar taste and thickness to honey, but since it was diluted and all, it was

smooth and easy to drink. Overall, it wasn’t nearly as intense as I’d expected.

As I was licking my lips and savoring the taste of the mead, Martha returned.“Oh my, did you eat it all already?”

“Yeah, it was delicious.”

“Well, we still have more, so would you like some bone-in meat or friedcartilage or something like that to go with your drink?”

Hmm… There’s still some room left in my stomach, so maybe I’ll give it a try.

“That would be great, thanks. Could I have another round of mead, too,please?”

“Sure! Just a minute.”

I watched Martha go back to the kitchen and sipped on the last of my mead,surveying the restaurant again. At that moment, my eyes fell on the woman I’dseen by the water well earlier, standing idly in the doorway and looking a littlenonplussed. I guess the room had filled up without my noticing, since sheseemed to be trying to spot an empty seat. Maybe she was looking for the twomen she’d arrived with?

Her eyes met mine, and she smiled and came over to my table.

“Pardon me, but would you mind terribly if I sat here?”

“Go right ahead.” There was no way I could turn down sharing a table with abeautiful woman. I was a little embarrassed after what happened at the bath,but I did my best not to let it show.

> Skill Acquired: “Poker Face”

When the message popped up in the log in the corner of my vision, I funneledpoints into the new skill with record-breaking speed.

Noticing the newcomer to my table, Martha came over to get her order. Shemust have failed to see the woman looking for a seat before because she’d beenrelaying my order to the kitchen.

“I’ll pass on the meat, thank you. Just the soup and rye bread for me. I’ll havean ale, too, if you please.”

“Sure, I’ll be right back with it.”

Martha’s hard sell on the boar steak didn’t seem to have worked on thewoman, presumably a vegetarian, so she looked a little dejected as she wentback to the kitchen.

“The barroom’s awfully busy, considering the inn’s so low on guests,” Icommented as Martha returned with the lovely woman’s food and ale.

“That’s true. But now that I’ve tasted how delicious the food is, I canunderstand why.”

“Eh-heh-heh! Thank you! I’ll tell my father that later.”

She seemed pleased by my compliment. Apparently, the cook was her father.

“Mr. Satou, your food’s going to be just a little longer, so you can eat thiswhile you wait if you’d like.” She placed in front of me a small plate of whatlooked like the sauerkraut I’d eaten that afternoon, saying it was on the house.

The woman murmured a “pardon me” and started to eat. I watched as shedipped the rye bread into the vegetable soup, scooping it up to her mouth.

Oh, is that how you’re meant to eat it?

“Is something wrong?”

“Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to stare. I just didn’t know you were supposed toeat the bread like that.”

I guess my “Poker Face” skill couldn’t disguise the fact that I was staring atsomeone.

“Ah, are you from the royal capital or the formal capital?”

“No, I’m from a kingdom far from here…”

Does the food differ depending on the region? And I understand “royalcapital,” but what is the “formal capital”?

“Do they not eat rye bread in the royal capital and the…formal capital?”

“Well, commoners do eat rye bread there, but I hear that the nobles andwealthy merchants in the royal capital eat white bread. And they say the formalcapital’s staple food is a grain called rice, so they don’t eat much bread.”

Huh… So there’s a city in this kingdom with a rice-based culture? I’ll have tocheck it out if I start craving rice. Since I normally live off junk food and instantramen, though, that probably wouldn’t happen a whole lot.

Oh, maybe I should ask more about this “formal capital.” I asked the womanwhat it was as she ate her bread-soaked soup.

“It’s Duke Ougoch’s capital in the south. It was the first capital when the ShigaKingdom was founded.”

“Huh! So it’s like the old capital? I’d love to see it someday.”

“Oh yes. It’s said to be a beautiful city on the bank of a large river.”

Ooh, that sounds nice. The starry sky reflected in the canals… It woulddefinitely make for a lovely sight.

“Mr. Satou, your food’s ready! Sorry for the wait.”

“Oh, this smells great!”

Five cuts of bone-in meat rested on top of a wave-patterned plate. Were theseribs, maybe? Looking at the other patrons, it seemed like holding it by the boneand gnawing on the meat was the way to go, even if that resulted in a mess ofgrease getting on your hands and face.

I pulled out one of the handkerchiefs I’d purchased and placed it on the tablefor later. If possible, I’d prefer to avoid getting my face all sticky in front of abeautiful woman.

Obviously, there was no way this meat could’ve been cooked in a pressurecooker, yet it fell off the bone as easily as if it had. Some of the other guestsaround me seemed to be struggling with theirs, so Martha might have picked outthe best pieces for me.

I wiped my hands with the handkerchief and took another swig of mead. Yeah,this is the best, all right.

I saw the woman gulp from the corner of my eye. (I wasn’t paying closeattention to her, but my line of sight did happen to be around her collarbone atthe time.) Maybe she wasn’t a vegetarian at all and had refrained from orderingthe meat for financial reasons?

“You’re welcome to have a piece, if you’d like,” I offered.

Her face lit up with excitement for a moment, then faltered hesitantly, untilher appetite finally won out over her shyness. “Well then, if you don’t mind…,”she murmured, and picked up a small piece.

Lovely as she might have been, the woman dropped all pretenses as she duginto the bone-in meat. Well, I’m glad she likes it. When she finished eating, shelicked her fingers in an undeniably sexy gesture.

Since she didn’t seem to have a handkerchief, I gently pushed mine across thetable toward her. The beauty thanked me and accepted it, wiping her handsclean.

She still looked a bit hungry, so I offered her more of the meat as we engagedin lively conversation. Apparently, she was from Seiryuu City, but she’d married amerchant and lived in the royal capital until recently. Her husband had passedaway, so she’d returned to her hometown. The men who’d come with her to theinn were friends of her husband and had offered to accompany her to SeiryuuCity, she explained.

I ordered more drinks and snacks from Martha, enjoying the woman’s talk ofthe royal capital.

Uh, what do I do now?

We’d been drinking together as the woman relayed tales of the royal capitaland her journey to Seiryuu City, but it seemed I’d made two gravemiscalculations.

First, apparently my high level made my tolerance to alcohol quite strong. I’dfelt mildly intoxicated when I drank the mead, but it seemed to wear off prettyfast. I’d even picked up an “Alcohol Resistance” skill somewhere along the way.Luckily, perhaps because the mead was watered down, I hadn’t gotten anAlcoholic title or anything like that.

The second miscalculation was that the woman drinking alongside me was nowleaning heavily over the table. If this had been a college mixer, I might havethought of bringing her home, but I could see that was wrong now, especiallysince she was recently widowed.

Instead, I waited until Martha had a free moment and asked her to guide meto the woman’s room so I could carry her to the bed. I wouldn’t have been ableto fit up the cramped staircase if I’d carried her bridal-style, so I had to sling herover my shoulder instead.

“What a gentleman you are, Mr. Satou!”

“Oh, not at all.” I bade the admiring Martha good night and returned to myroom.

I could still feel the pleasant warmth of the woman I’d carried on my back.

Taking off my robe and placing it in Storage, I dove into bed.

Man, this inn was a good choice. The food was delicious, the bed was clean,the staff was adorable, and the woman in the neighboring room was beautiful.This was much better service than I’d come to expect from my dreams.

The surprisingly comfortable bed seemed like it should put me straight tosleep, but the excitement of the day and my conversation with the beautifulwoman kept me up for a while. As I waited for sleep to come, I started playingback in my head the events of the dream so far.

The lizardmen and dragons I defeated with the Meteor Showers. Ihadn’t been able to see the dragons, but the lizardmen had been realisticenough to make all of Hollywood weep for joy. This dream of mine had animpressive attention to detail.

The battle between the count’s army and the wyvern. Theencounter with Zena and her comrades was intense enough for an RPGcommercial. I’d committed a hit-and-run by mistake, and now thatwyvern was probably in little Yuni’s stomach.

The streets and people of Seiryuu City. Ever since my arrival, therealism of the city streets and the variety of outfits the people wore hadamazed me. The disparity of wealth in the city, the different kinds ofclothing for different occupations, the patchwork clothes and dirty shoes—there was such immense variety that it was hard to believe this was adream. I wish Mr. Tubs would step it up and put the same level of effortinto his setting designs.

And the food I’d had earlier. The mead, which I’d never tastedbefore, was delicious, and the wild boar steak was absurdly good. It wouldbe no exaggeration to say the combination of the steak and my first-everrye bread was probably the best thing I’d ever eaten. I had never hadmeat like that in Japan. My subconscious had a better imagination thanI’d thought, inventing all these scenes, languages, and even tastes I’dnever experienced before.

…Hmm.

The realization had been slowly sinking in all along, but putting it togethernow… There is no way I can go on calling this a dream.

When had I first gotten the sense that something was off? I’d definitely felt itwhen I saw the realistic detail of the city streets, but even the people I’d metalong the way hadn’t looked or thought like anyone from the stories or games Iknew.

And I didn’t know anything about phrases like trimoon or Zena’s father’s fullrank, a hereditary knight, which was apparently different from a regular knightor viscount. I had a feeling there was just too much information in this dreamthat didn’t come from my own knowledge.

The most extreme cases of this were the languages, like Shigan and the“ancient scalefolk language.” Even when I was in middle school with delusions ofbeing a sorcerer, I’d never created my own language. At best, I’d patchedtogether words from foreign languages.

And that food! I’d had quiche before, so my afternoon meal could have beenmy imagination, but I had no idea what mead tasted like, and if I was able toinvent a taste as incredible as that wild boar, I might as well just start living in mydreams.

At any rate, I didn’t have enough information to figure out how I’d ended up inthis situation, so I put that question on hold. I still couldn’t entirely dismiss thepossibility that this was a dream, but for now, my best bet was probably toassume this was some kind of gamelike parallel world.

As for my current course of action, I figured I might as well continue enjoyingmy travels here while still looking for a way back home.

Yep, sightseeing was the primary goal.

Of course, it wasn’t like I didn’t want to ever return to my normal routine, buthey, I was in another world! I wanted to live it up as much as possible and use myexperiences as inspiration for my work as a game creator.

Besides, we’d already turned in FFL, and all that was left to do for WW weresome numerical adjustments. And there was perfect documentation for thatalready, so I was sure even Mr. Tubs could take care of it somehow if it came tothat.

I might get fired for taking time off from work without permission, but luckily,my old coworkers who had retired could always lend me some cash. I’d get byjust fine until I found another job.

And as for my personal life, my girlfriend had long since dumped me, and myparents were happily living in the countryside with my older sister and herhusband. My family’s pretty laid-back, so even if I disappeared for a while, Idoubted they’d worry much.

My sister might get mad at me, but she did take over my old room with greatpleasure the second I moved to Tokyo and all, and I was sure I could get back onher good side with tales of my travels.

And if, for any reason, it turned out that I couldn’t return to my own world, itdidn’t seem like I’d have too much trouble getting by here; the only things thatcould threaten my peaceful existence were probably demon lords or gods.

Surely, as long as I kept living quietly, beings like that would have no reason togo out of their way to mess with me. I could just go on seeing the sights andliving a modest life.

I was afraid that if I started picking fights and throwing around barrages ofMeteor Showers, it would raise an event flag for me to become a huge demonlord myself. And I certainly wasn’t looking to cause any (additional) massgenocides in the first place.

Peace was the priority, after all.

Date

Satou here. I’ve always been relatively popular with younger girls, but Imake sure it never goes any further than friendship, and I’ve never datedany of them. Whenever I fall in love with someone, for some reason it’salways an older woman.

I awoke to the loud noise of someone rudely knocking on my door.

“Mr. Satou, are you awake?”

“Yeah, I am now.”

A slim ray of sunlight snuck in through a crack in the closed-up window. It wasthe sole window in the room, big enough only to peek your head through,without any glass. Maybe it was just for ventilation? I remembered that Marthahad advised that I close it overnight to prevent crime.

I did a quick check of my appearance before heading to the door. A wholenight had passed, yet there wasn’t any stubble on my face. Oh, right, I couldn’tgrow any facial hair when I was fifteen. When it finally happened after I startedcollege, I was so thrilled that I went around showing it off to everyone.

…Though my girlfriend at the time immediately told me to shave it.

I didn’t have any bedhead, either, so I put on the white embroidered robe I’dbought yesterday and left my room.

“Good morning.”

“If you don’t hurry up, your girlfriend’s going to come looking for you!”

Excuse me? My girlfriend dumped me over six months ago because I was toobusy with work, you know. And I knew virtually no one in this city to begin with.

When I followed Martha downstairs, I found the magic soldier Zena waiting forme. “Good morning, Satou!”

“Oh, good morning. That’s a very cute outfit you’re wearing today.” Zena musthave been off duty, because she wasn’t in her uniform. Instead, she wore a whiteblouse with a light-blue skirt, with a somewhat large yellow-green shawl over hershoulders. It wasn’t particularly fashionable, but on Zena, it gave a neat andwholesome impression.

Must be nice, being a pretty girl.

Didn’t she sprain her ankle? Is she all right walking around like that?

“Is your leg doing better now?”

“Yes, a priest at Garleon Temple healed it for me yesterday!”

Ah, so a priest healed it. That’s fantasy for you! It must have been Holy Magicor something.

“And, um, since I’m off duty today…I thought maybe…that is, um…I couldshow you around the city…!” She looked like she was going to faint. No need tobe so tense…

I must have made a strange face as I suppressed my amusement at her anxiousgestures, because her face started to fall.

Oh dear.

“Thank you very much! I’d certainly appreciate that.”

“Really? Great!” Zena rewarded my acceptance of her offer with a huge smile,like a blooming sunflower.

Yep, her youthfulness was blindingly radiant, all right.

I washed my face and set out with Zena.

She suggested we get breakfast from the food carts at the morning market onSouth Street. I guess she had no reservations about going there, despite beingthe daughter of an aristocrat.

Carried by the wind, the scent of soy sauce tickled my nose.

“Is that soy sauce I smell…?”

“That’s right! It’s one of the two great seasonings created by the ancestral kingYamato. It’s even exported to other countries! Did they not have it where you

came from, Satou?”

“They did—I just haven’t smelled it in a long time.”

“Ohh, I see!”

I wondered if Yamato was written with the same kanji as the old name forJapan. Was the other “great seasoning” miso, perhaps?

Zena beckoned me over toward a cart where they were cooking something inoil. Croquettes, maybe?

“Good morning! Two Seiryuu croquettes, please.”

“Certainly! Just a moment.”

It seemed like the oil was made from tallow; the smell was awfully intense.

“Miss Lilio isn’t with you today?”

“She just got back from a long expedition yesterday, so she’s still asleep in herroom.”

The man gave Zena two croquettes wrapped in leaves, and she held one out tome. They were a copper coin each, so while her hands were still full, I paid thevendor myself.

“Wait, I wanted to treat you as thanks for yesterday!”

“No, no, it’s fine. You’ve done more than enough already by bringing me to thecity and helping me get settled.”

We sat on a stone bench near the cart to eat our croquettes. The bench was abit dirty, so I took out a pair of handkerchiefs and spread them on the benchbefore we sat down.

Zena giggled. “I feel a bit like a princess.” Looking pleased and a littleembarrassed, she took tiny, delicate bites of the croquette in her hands. Iadmired the scene as I ate my own croquette.

The deep-fried, meatless potato croquette was pretty good, but it was a littletoo heavy, maybe because of the oil. I got the feeling that if I ate more than two,I’d have heartburn for the rest of the day.

“Lilio’s boyfriend is actually the one who popularized the Seiryuu croquette.”

“Oh? Is he a chef?”

“No, not exactly. He can’t really cook himself, but he knows how a lot of thingsare made. It’s very unusual.”

Hmm. I know it’s bad to jump to conclusions, but that sounded like a Japaneseperson to me. It seemed like other Japanese people had come to this world, too,like that “ancestral king Yamato.” Maybe there was an easy way to get here andback, like walking through a wardrobe or something.

I finished eating first, and as I sat there idly, a little girl with flowers in a smallwicker basket approached me. She stopped in front of me, holding out one smallblossom.

“Excuse me, sir! Buy a flower, please?”

The little girl had been glancing in my direction repeatedly for a while, so shemust have waited till I finished eating to take her chance. Pretty smart for such ayoung girl.

“Sure, I’ll buy one. How much?”

“It’s one penny.”

I handed her the asking price and received a flower in return. The girl thankedme happily before racing off to find her next prospective customer.

I handed the flower to Zena—after waiting for her to finish eating hercroquette and wiping her hands clean, of course. She looked unusually surprised.Uh, what else was I going to do with it?

“Um…are you sure it’s okay for me to take it?”

“Of course. It would trouble me if you didn’t.”

I mean, I’m not gonna throw it away.

Zena smiled like she was trying in vain to disguise her happiness. Is it really thatbig of a deal? Well, I’m glad she’s happy about it, I guess.

I bought some melon-like fruit cut into bite-size slices to clear my palate, thentried some kind of plant stalks fried with soy sauce. I was a bit doubtful based ontheir looks, but they turned out to be perfectly tasty.

The next cart that Zena brought me to, however, was even more off-putting.

“These are called dragon wings! They’re fried bat wings coated in black misosauce. It’s a Seiryuu City specialty!”

So did dragon wings look similar to bat wings? Apparently, this food wassupposed to bring good luck. Zena promised they tasted better than they looked,so I trusted her and bought two.

As I was paying for our wings, I heard Zena let out a short cry behind me.

“Sorry, lady!”

A kid had bumped into Zena as he ran by. That was fine in itself, butunfortunately, the goopy miso sauce from the dragon wing had gotten all overZena’s white blouse.

“The blouse I borrowed from my mother…,” she whispered, her eyes fillingwith tears. Maybe if we went to Teputa Avenue we could find someone toremove the stain?

“Excuse me? I couldn’t help but notice your troubles. Are you by chance inneed of a charmer?”

“Sorry, but what we need is a laundromat where we can get out this stain.”Why is this person peddling charms or whatever at a time like this? Be a littlemore sensitive.

“Well, you see, I happen to be skilled at Everyday Magic. I could use it to cleanthat stain.”

Oh, so that’s what a charmer does? Her perfect timing was awfully suspicious,but for the moment, getting rid of the stain was the top priority. “Please do,then.”

“Certainly. That’ll be three large coppers for the cleaning-and-drying spell set.”

I didn’t want to bother with haggling, so I simply paid her the three coins towork her magic.

“Now then, first I’ll remove the stain… Soft WashJuusenjou!”

The Everyday Magic cast on Zena left her sopping wet. The chest wrap that shewore in place of a bra was showing through her now-transparent shirt, so Iquickly pulled a largish towel out of Storage and put it around her shoulders. Iheard a few grumbles of disappointment from some unsavory men around us,but I ignored them.

The sticky miso stain that had been on Zena’s blouse moments ago hadvanished completely. Just like magic!

“And now I’m going to dry you off… Dry Kansou!”

Just as if it’d been put through a drying machine, the blouse was suddenly freeof water. Once I checked that her shirt was no longer see-through, I reached outto take back the towel. My hand must have entered the field of the drying spellwhen I did so, because I suddenly felt dry warmth and static as if I’d put my handin a dryer.

> Skill Acquired: “Everyday Magic”

Wow, that’s all it took for me to learn it? Magic skills are super easy to pickup.

That being said, the incantations seemed much harder to learn, so maybe itbalanced out.

As soon as the spells were finished, the young charmer girl vanished into thecrowd.

Well, I have a magic user with me right here, so maybe she can tell me aboutit. If I could learn Everyday Magic, I could use that in place of a washer and dryer.

“Zena, how do you recite the incantations for spells?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the pronunciation seems pretty strange to me…”

“I see… Well, most Wind Magic spells start with . If I had to sound itout, it’d be something like ‘lyuuu lia (etc.)…laaa luleli laaaao,’ maybe? But even ifthey can memorize them, most beginners still can’t sing the incantations at first.It’s…”

Zena tilted her head pensively, trying to figure out how best to explain it.

“…rhythm. Yeah, that’s it. You take that slow chant I said before and sing it toa steady rhythm. And if you keep that rhythm and increase the tempo, you’llhave ! In theory, anyway.”

Curious, I tried to practice the phrase she’d taught me, but after a fewminutes, I had the feeling I wasn’t going to get anywhere. “That’s prettydifficult.”

“Well, yes, of course it is! It normally takes years to learn the incantations.”

“How many years did you have to study before you could use Wind Magic,then, Zena?”

“Technically, I’d say about three years of training. But thinking about it now, itfeels like I’ve been training to be a sorcerer every day of my life.”

What did that mean? The faintest trace of a shadow, or maybe bitterness,clouded Zena’s usually bright smile. “For starters, I had children’s books aboutthe history of magic read aloud to me, practiced reading poems aloud andabdominal breathing… I had toys that taught me the flow of magic, too. Fromlessons to playtime, everything was designed to help me grow into a sorcerer.”

I see… So she was raised sort of like a gifted child? There were little kids inJapan who couldn’t play with other children because they had lessons, too, so Iguess this was sort of like that.

Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.

“Oh, but I don’t have any ill will toward my parents for raising me like that oranything! It’s fun to use magic, and my goal is to be able to fly someday.”Sensing that the mood had gotten a bit gloomy, Zena quickly added, “So why areyou interested in practicing magic, Satou? Would it be useful for your trade?”

“Oh, no… There’s no bath in the inn, so I thought maybe if I could use EverydayMagic, I wouldn’t have to bathe outside and stuff.” Trying to lighten things up, Igave the silliest reason I could think of.

My clowning must have worked, because Zena stared at me incredulously for amoment, then burst out laughing. “Ah-ha-ha-ha! I’ve never heard of anyonewanting to learn magic for a reason like that!”

Was it really that ridiculous…? I must have hit her funny bone, because Zenacouldn’t seem to stop laughing.

“Is that weird?” I was mostly joking, but I didn’t think it was that bad of areason. Who wouldn’t want to make an annoying task more convenient?

Her reply was instantaneous. “Yes, it is! Really weird!”

“I mean, if you had the time and money to learn magic, you’d be better offinstalling a bath in your house, wouldn’t you? And you could just hire a servantor buy a slave to heat it up for you!”

Oh, so that’s how it is…

I tend to think that if I can do something, I’d rather just take care of it myself,but I guess it was normal to buy labor here. Apparently, it didn’t cost much,either.

But now that I knew the basics, I figured I could find an introductory book andpractice the lines some more.

At any rate, sometime during the course of this conversation, I’d gained theskill “Secrecy” and the titles Clown and Gentleman. But I didn’t have time toworry about my log too much.

Having successfully restored the positive mood of our trip, I continued walkingaround with Zena, trying different foods. Our next destination was a sweet-smelling dessert area.

“This is a fried sweet bun! They make a paste with steamed sweet potatoesand knead it into the dough before frying it.”

A dessert-like bun made with sweet potato… That sounded vaguely Japaneseto me. As I ate the sweet bun, I also sipped on a hot beverage that tasted sort oflike watered-down ginger tea.

“And I saved the best for last! Lilio told me about this place.” The next stallZena had guided me to was selling the same malt syrup candy I’d had withMartha yesterday. The shopkeeper was even wearing the same apron as the manwe’d bought them from.

I gave the man two copper coins and bought one for each of us. Taking two

slim sticks, the man dipped them into the sticky brown liquid and rotated themslowly before pulling them back out.

Zena seemed so excited about showing me, so I would’ve felt bad saying I’dhad some yesterday. Instead, I decided to act like it had been a really long time.

“Malt syrup candy, huh? That brings back memories.”

“Oh…so you’ve had it before?”

She looked a bit disappointed. Damn… I guess I should have acted surprised forher.

“The syrup candy I’m used to is usually clear, so I didn’t know what it was atfirst.”

“Young master, the colorless syrup candy is a high-class product, made withrice and sugar. Ours is more for commoners, so we use potatoes and gabo fruitswith malt. That’s why it’s brown, y’see.” The older man cut in rather quickly.

Young master? Who, me? He didn’t seem to be talking to Zena.

“Oh, sir…I’m just a commoner myself. A friend gave me the clear candy a longtime ago—I didn’t know it was a high-class item.”

I mean, it was only two hundred yen at a festival.

After that, we browsed the other stalls, enjoying the sights and sounds of thecrowded street.

I decided to buy some fried pastries made with honey for the girls workinghard back at the Gatefront Inn. Zena and I each ate one, and they were prettytasty. I figured the girls would like them, too.

After having more than our fill of food and drink, we visited some stalls sellingmiscellaneous goods.

A stand with cute shells and bisque pottery caught my eye. For some reason,the market price shown by my “Estimation” skill for the shells was pretty high.When I asked the elderly shopkeeper about them, she explained that they werevessels for holding medicine.

“This salve is very effective, young master.”

“Oh? What does it do?”

“It works wonders for cuts or chapped skin. If you hand it out to your servants,why, they’ll work hard as horses!”

On closer examination, the wrinkled old shopkeeper’s skin was much lesscracked than the Gatefront Inn’s landlady. She’d fed me well with delicious food,so I decided I might as well buy some for her as a souvenir. And while the pricewas expensive for shells, it was still only a few copper coins.

“I’ll take five, then, please.”

“Now, that would be fifteen copper coins, but I’ll knock it down to twelve foryou.”

Wow, that’s actually lower than the market price. I reached into my pocket forthe money to pay the woman, but Zena’s slim hand stopped me midmotion.

“Excuse me, madam, but that seems a little high. Wasn’t it two for one copperlast time I came here? And since he’s buying five, couldn’t you make it nine?”

Whoa. Zena was smiling sweetly as she drove a ridiculous bargain.

“My, I didn’t notice before because you have a man with you today, but aren’tyou the girl who’s usually with Lilio? Well, I can’t go any lower than ten coppers.”

“Then can you throw in three of these small ones here, please?” Recognizingthat she wasn’t going to lower the price any further, Zena had pointed at somesmall shell vessels beside the salve I was buying and asked for them as a bonus.Based on their size, I’d guess the miniature ones could hold about a third asmuch as the bigger shells could.

“Goodness, girl! If you start acting like that Lilio, you might never get married.I’ll throw in one of the small ones and nothing more.”

Zena’s face twitched a little at the part about marriage, but she maintainedher smile as she evenly accepted the bargain. “Very well. That’ll work just fine.”

She’s only seventeen… It’s a little early to be worrying about marriage, isn’t it?

The old lady skillfully wrapped the shells in leaves, then used some kind of thinvine to bind them together. If I put them in my bag like that, I feel like they’regoing to make a mess. I thanked Zena for looking out for me and gave her one of

the shells.

I would have done it anyway, so…

After we’d reached the end of the street stalls, Zena brought me somewherenew.

“Are you sure you’re all right with coming to a place like this?”

“Yeah, the breeze feels great.”

“Hee-hee, that’s true.” Zena giggled as she surveyed the scenery below. Wewere standing atop one of the towers of the city walls. I had spotted it from thearea past the street stalls, so she’d offered to take me there. Since it was amilitary installation, I couldn’t look around unless I was with her.

Zena seemed to be relatively famous, because even in her civilian clothes, shewas allowed up without a problem.

“I know I’m the one who asked, but are you sure it’s all right to bring someoneup here who’s not part of the military?”

“It’s fine! The only attacks we have to fear out here in this city are fromwyverns. We haven’t fought with any neighboring countries for a few hundredyears, and the war with the beastfolk ended ten years ago.”

Hmm… I wonder if the beastfolk slaves in the city were prisoners of war fromthat period?

“Zena, what is that windmill used for?”

“Oh, that? It’s a flour mill. But it can also be turned into a gun battery platformin case of a wyvern attack.”

A gun battery? In the middle of town? “If they fired cannons from a spot likethat, wouldn’t it damage the houses nearby?”

“Well, they do have cannons, but against a wyvern they fire only nets orblanks.”

“I see… So it’s used to drive a wyvern away in a different direction?”

“That’s right. They drive it over to a field in that manor over there so they canfinish it off.”

Wouldn’t that destroy the field, too?

Zena could tell that I was really interested in this subject, so she offered totake me to the manor and windmill. I’d been planning to ask her later, anyway,so that worked out for me.

Along the way to the nearby windmill, Zena said we could stop off at ParionTemple. The shady priest raising a fuss yesterday was from Zaicuon, right? Andthe one who healed Zena’s leg was Garleon… I wonder if all the gods have “-on”at the end of their names?

“Ah, there it is!”

A few streets away from the area with all the stalls, we arrived at ParionTemple. It was on a pretty big plot of land—about three-quarters of an acre? Atany rate, it was three times the size of any normal house.

The wall around the area seemed to serve as the outer wall of the temple. Itwas made of stone; upon going through the arched entrance, I could see a spacefor parking horses and carriages and a wide-open gate.

There was an expensive-looking carriage in the parking area. Maybe it waswrong of me to presume, but I had a strong suspicion this clergy was loaded.

Zena took my hand and guided me into the temple. Inside was a large roomwith a high ceiling at least thirty feet up. Various banners and holy symbolsdecorated the room, and several priests were performing a sort of baptism ritualfor the child of someone who looked like a merchant.

There were skylights in the ceiling, though no stained glass; on the upper halfof the wall, there was a painting of a sword-wielding knight locked in combatwith a horned demon. The image was a bit strange but oddly powerful.

“That’s a picture of the first hero battling the demon lord.”

“Oh, that’s the hero? I was sure he was a knight.”

“You can tell because his Holy Sword is glowing blue. It would be easy to tell ifhe was a knight—he’d be wielding a Magic Sword instead, and those glow red.”

Come to think of it, those Holy Swords I have glowed blue when I first tookthem out, too. But it lasted for only a second.

“Is the hero’s Holy Sword the only one that glows?”

“A Holy Sword should glow blue only if it’s accepted the wielder. But someHoly Swords have been used by people without the title of Hero—likeGjallarhorn, which the ancestral king Yamato left behind, and Claíomh Solais, theHoly Sword that protects our kingdom.”

“Accepted the wielder,” huh? I didn’t have a whole lot of confidence in myheroism, so I doubted a Holy Sword would accept me anytime soon. Anyway,Claíomh Solais was a famous enough name that it sounded familiar, but I’d neverheard of Gjallarhorn.

Oh, but I got a bunch of titles, too… Since I did kill some dragons, I wonder if Igot the Hero title? When I opened the list of titles to check, I encounteredsomething strange.

…Godkiller?

Alarmed, I double-checked my log. Luckily, it didn’t seem like anything hadbeen deleted yet.

Among the notifications of enemies I’d defeated, there was a scatteredhandful of titles. I’d gotten a few titles like Lizardman Slayer, Dragon Slayer[Lesser], Dragon Slayer [Fully Grown], Dragon Slayer [Ancient], and DragonSlayer [God]. Aside from Slayer, there were also ones like Destroyer and NaturalEnemy of ~.

And after all those…

> Defeated Dragon God Aconcagua!

> Title Acquired: Godkiller

Do you believe in gods?

I see… So the Meteor Shower can even kill gods? It can, huh…

I’d panicked and fired off three of them, but if I had stopped at one, would Ihave been met with a counterattack from an angry god? All’s well that ends well,I guess.

“That doesn’t mean just anyone can use a Holy Sword.”

After I’d fallen silent in shock, a woman’s gentle voice broke in to ourconversation…

“Only those heroes who answer the call of our youthful goddess Parion canfight a demon lord. Before a hero who wields a Holy Sword from such a god,even a demon lord can do naught but fall to his knees.”

Turning around, I saw a young woman in a scarlet outfit not unlike a Westernnun’s. Something about her, maybe her pale eye color, made her whole presenceseem somehow faint to me. Her attire was different from the clothes I’d seen onthe other clergy here. Was she an important figure?

Beside her face, an AR screen began to display the woman’s information. Veryconvenient.

“Sister Ohna!”

“It is good to see you again at last, Zena of the house of Marienteil. Is youryounger brother in good health?”

“Yes! He’s going to become the new head of the family next year, so he’sstudying hard.”

“I see. If anything should arise that I can be of help with, please don’t hesitateto ask.”

Having talked with the priestess for a moment, Zena turned toward me forintroductions. “Sister Ohna is the count’s daughter. My mother was her wetnurse, so Sister Ohna is always worrying about my younger brother’s health.”

I see… She must care a lot about Zena’s brother, then. She’d approached usjust to ask about him, after all.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m a peddler by the name of Satou.”

“I am Sister Ohna, a priestess who serves the temple of Parion. Please forgetthe lineage Zena spoke of; such worldly status is meaningless in the temple.”

So being a priestess here was sort of like being a Buddhist monk?

Though she was younger than Zena, her calm disposition somehow made herseem more like a doting mother.

“Still, your visitation brings me great peace of mind. Until now, Zena has onlyever shown interest in the study of magic, but it seems spring has come for herat last.”

“Wh-wha…? No! It’s not like that at all! Satou and I, um, we’ve only just met,so…!” Zena, who apparently had little experience with love, seemeddisproportionately flustered by Ohna’s remarks and was frantically makingexcuses. Her pubescent thought process was written all over her face: I’m fondof him…but it’s not love or anything… But I don’t think I’d object if…

She was so innocent… It brought back memories of my school days.

I wanted to talk with the priestess a little longer, but a commotion near theentrance forced us to break it off.

“Your Holiness! The head of the Boril family is deathly ill! He’s still far tooyoung—please come help him!”

“Master Boril, is it? We novices alone can’t allay his illness…”

“Send the priestess, then!”

“Isn’t the Boril estate in the west quarter? We can’t very well send the reveredpriestess serving as our god’s Oracle to a place of brothels and filth!”

“Please! I’m begging you!”

A priest and a man who seemed to have barged into the temple were having aheated discussion. Sister Ohna turned to Zena. “There appears to be anemergency, so I must take my leave now, Zena.”

With that, the priestess walked over to the two men. “I will go. Please preparethe carriage.”

The priest still seemed indignant at the thought, but he was no match for thewill of the “Oracle” herself. I could hear him arguing with her in an urgentwhisper. It’s rude to eavesdrop, of course, but I’d forgotten to turn off my “KeenHearing” skill, so I ended up tuning in.

“Sister Ohna, should you not go to the count to convey the Oracle youreceived not long ago?”

“I have already entrusted the head priest with that task.”

“But the prediction said there would be a disaster at Zaicuon Temple—it’s fartoo dangerous to go near it in the west quarter!”

“I believe it will be fine. The Boril estate is far from their temple.”

Zaicuon Temple, huh? That’s where that tubby priest was from, the one who’dbeen preaching in the east quarter. Was he going to do something drastic to winback followers?

Well, we’d just have to make sure we didn’t get too close if it seemed like a riotor something was about to break out. I was sure I could pick up Zena and hoponto a roof if it came to that.

Zena and I left the temple and returned to our stroll through town.

Walking around the European-style streets with a lovely young lady wascertainly fun. Parks, open plazas, public wells, and the like were distributedthroughout the city at regular intervals. We walked along a path next to onesuch park, taking in the scenery.

In a little plaza where the grass was cut short, we saw an old couple with aninfant relaxing on a bench and a group of ten or so youngsters practicing martialarts. I’d thought the turf was a uniform lawn, but on closer inspection, I saw itwas a mixture of different weeds and grasses.

Zena seemed to have found something of interest, because she stoppedsuddenly and rushed over to a large tree in the middle of the park.

“What’s the matter?”

“Satou, look what I found…”

Zena held out her hands—cupped inside was a baby bird.

A beautiful girl holding up a tiny bird, sunlight filtering down through thetrees… Now, that was a picture worth a thousand words.

“It looks like there’s a nest at the top of the tree.”

The nearest branch was about eight feet up… Hmm. I could make that jump inone go easily enough, but that would probably look a little too superhuman. Itwas probably best to just climb and pull myself up.

“Um, Satou, could you please…?” Zena asked timidly, so of course I gladlyagreed.

I’d already planned to, anyway.

Accepting the baby bird in one hand, I grabbed the first branch with the other.I did a one-armed pull-up to get onto that branch, putting my foot up andclambering to stand against the tree trunk. It was pretty tough to do withoutcrushing the little chick.

The nest was at the base of a branch two or three up from the one I wasstanding on, but I was able to reach up and return it without too much trouble.As soon as I put the baby bird back in the nest, its mother swooped down at mefuriously, so I was sadly too busy defending myself to enjoy the sight of the littlechicks peeping for food with their tiny beaks opened wide.

Since I had the use of both hands now, getting down was much easier. When Ireached the last branch, I had to remember to grab on to it and hang down for amoment before landing on my feet. I didn’t want to worry Zena by jumpingstraight down, after all.

“Wow! Satou, you really are very nimble!”

“Oh, it was nothing special.” Dodging Zena’s compliment, I returned to our idlechatter.

As we talked, it turned out that Zena had intended to ask me to lift her up sothat she could return the bird herself. Oh, Zena. Good thing I misunderstood,because a skirt wasn’t exactly ideal tree-climbing wear.

Watching the group of kids practicing their martial arts, I asked Zena aquestion. “What sort of things does the army do for training?”

“Hmm… Well, the soldiers train the same way here as anywhere else, butmagic soldiers have to be mindful that they don’t use up all their magic. Themajority of us try to keep ourselves ready to cast at full power.”

I see. So they break up their training? It made sense—a magic soldier whocouldn’t cast spells wouldn’t be of much use to anyone.

“The assigned roles of magic soldiers and sorcerers vary based on their

attributes. This tends to surprise people outside of the army, but for example,Fire users are the only group that really focuses on direct attack spells.”

Yeah, I guess fire is definitely attack-oriented.

“As a Wind user, I have useful spells like Wind Protection, which defendsagainst arrows; Air Cushion, which can stop battering rams; and Whisper Wind,which can convey orders. It’d be great to use Fly for scouting from the air andsuch, but there’s nobody in the county who knows how to use that.”

That’s right—wasn’t Zena’s goal to be able to fly?

“If you learn how to fly, it’d be fun to go on a date in the sky or something.”

I meant it as a joke, but Zena flushed all the way down to her neck andstammered, “P-please look forward to it!”

She was cute, but I was worried some ill-intentioned person was going to takeadvantage of her sooner or later.

When we emerged on the other side of the park, we’d arrived right at the footof the windmill.

We weren’t able to go up to the top, but we did get to see the first floor wherethey grind the flour. There was something exciting about the sights andthunderous sounds of the dense metal machinery at work.

But all in all, it was a pretty normal windmill. Since this was a fantasy world, Iwould’ve liked to see some spirits dancing around as they ground the flour orsomething.

With that on my mind, I asked Zena about it. “Couldn’t they use magic to grindthe flour somehow?”

“Probably, but…using a mill is much easier,” she replied, shooting me a looksaying, What kind of question is that?

Our next destination, the manor field, was a little far to walk, so we took ahorse-drawn carriage along Center Street. Apparently, it cost one large copperfor any destination as long as it was within city limits. The vehicle was clearlymeant for sightseeing, as it had no roof and the seats were about shoulderheight.

We moved along through the city at an easy trot. A carriage ride through townin an exotic country with a beautiful girl at my side—this I could get used to. It’dbe even better if it was a gorgeous, voluptuous woman, but that was probably abit too much to ask.

The cart left the main street and headed north through a workers’ district.There, we saw many more vaguely muscular, stubborn-looking people. Wepassed by buildings that looked like workshops and factories, then through a

lumberyard, until we were before the inner wall of the city.

Proceeding west, we reached a small path between the outer wall at thewestern city limit and the inner wall, on the other side of which was the lord’smanor.

“Once we pass through here, we’ll be right at the field.”

“These walls are pretty impressive, looking up at them on both sides like this.”

“Yes! It makes you feel safe, doesn’t it?”

Zena clenched both fists and drew a little closer to me. At that moment, withwhat seemed like deliberate timing, the cart jerked abruptly. We must have hit apebble.

“Ah!” Zena lost her balance and toppled right into me, forcing me to catch her.She certainly felt a lot softer than she had in her armor before. There still wasn’tmuch worth mentioning about her chest, but she was very soft and feminine,though I’d rather wait at least another five years or so before doing anything likethis.

“Are you all right?”

“Y-yes! I’m sorry, I’ll get up right now!” Flustered, Zena quickly pulled awayfrom me. You don’t need to feel so bad about it.

For just a moment, I could swear I saw the coachman snicker. Was that onpurpose?! This driver would make a great wingman.

After traveling this path for a little while longer, we came upon an open gatewith a soldier standing guard. The driver nodded at him lightly, then proceededthrough the gate into the lord’s manor.

The land seemed too small to provide enough food for the entire city, yet toolarge to serve as the feudal lord’s personal field. Our carriage proceeded slowlyalong the pastoral road. It looked like the farmhands were harvesting something.Using my “Telescopic Sight” skill, I was able to see that they were gathering the“gabo fruits” I’d seen yesterday.

And like at the market, a lot of the helpers were kids of only around elementaryschool age.

“Those children are probably from orphanages. Since it’s harvest season, thekids from town might have come to work, too.”

“Are those gabo fruits tasty?”

“No, not at all. They show up in army rations sometimes, but they’re so smellyand bitter, nobody really likes them.”

Zena was making an extremely unpleasant face. Did she hate them that much?

“If they’re that bad, why grow so many?” It seemed like an obvious question asI looked over the large field of gabo fruit. Wouldn’t it be better to just grow, say,potatoes? I wonder if they’re particularly rich in nutrients or calories orsomething?

“The civil officials say they’re a reliable year-round harvest. A whole field mightnot yield too much at one time, but they can be picked just about once a month,and the crop almost never fails. On top of that, it can even fertilize fallow land.It’s thanks to the gabo fruit that the rate of starvation in the city is droppingrapidly.”

What a convenient fantasy crop. That almost seemed like too much value.

It may have been secondhand information from an official, but that was still animpressively detailed explanation, Zena.

“However, it can be grown only in walled-in areas, so the food situation in thecountryside is apparently still quite rough.”

The orchard’s outer wall was lower than the one surrounding the city—maybeabout sixty feet? I wonder why it has to be walled in? Is it harder to growoutside, or maybe animals would eat it, or the feudal lord’s just monopolizingit? I found this very puzzling.

“Is there a reason for that?”

“They’re goblins’ favorite food. They’ll come and devour them all in a matter ofmoments if the fields aren’t protected like this. The fruit can’t be exportedoutside the city, either.”

Ooh, so there are goblins in this world, too? I’d definitely like to see that. Froma safe distance, preferably.

“It seems like there’d be people who’d try to smuggle them out anyway.”

“Well, if they were caught, they’d be sentenced to slavery.”

Yeah, but if there’s a famine, there’d be people who’d risk enslavementanyway and try to smuggle them out.

“Over there is an anti-dragon defense tower.”

Zena was pointing at one of three large towers inside the manor grounds. Onlytwo of them had windmills attached at the top like the one I’d seen from insidethe city.

“It seems much bigger and sturdier than the kind inside the city.”

“Yes, it is. There are large Magic Guns installed there from back when theyneeded to defend against invasions from flying dragons and wyrms, so the towerhas to be solid.”

Unfortunately, because of the cannon at the top, civilians couldn’t enter theanti-dragon defense tower.

I had been wondering for a while now: Why wouldn’t they just fight thedragons outside the city instead of here, where there were crops that couldeasily be ruined by such a thing? Perplexed, I posed the question to Zena.

“These fields were originally prepared specifically to fight against wyverns,”she explained. Apparently, since attacks had become scarce and the fields werefalling into disuse, the current count had decided that the area should be used asfarmland as well as a manor so it wouldn’t go to waste.

I see—so I had the order backward.

The carriage proceeded along a road that connected the towers. One of themwas all but destroyed, crumbling and blackened inside and out. There were a fewpeople taking measurements nearby, so it must have been in the process ofrepairs.

“Did a wyvern destroy that tower?”

“Oh… No, a lesser dragon destroyed it in an attack about two years ago.Apparently, it took out half the towers in the area, and there was even damageto the castle. We were still able to drive it off, though.”

“Only drive it off?”

“Well, a lesser dragon is still a dragon, after all. Wyverns are one thing, butdefeating a dragon is impossible. You’d have to be a great conjurer like theancestral king Yamato or a hero from the Saga Empire.”

I was tempted to look through my Storage, but I resisted. Zena’s story was stillcontinuing.

“That was enough to scare off the lesser dragon, but forty years ago, when afull-grown black dragon attacked, they couldn’t make a scratch on it. It’s hard tobelieve, but they say it even destroyed the outer wall! The reason the manor wallis so low is because it was built after that event.”

“Then how did they fend it off? Did a hero step in and defeat it?”

“No… After it had eaten its fill of goats from the farms, it simply flew away onits own. I guess from a dragon’s point of view, human beings are nothing morethan ants.”

Were dragons really that strong? Then I wonder if having defeated dragonsmeant that I could aim for world domination. Not that I had the ambition ordrive to do anything like that.

“That’s right—we talked about this a little in the temple, but what exactlymakes someone a ‘hero,’ anyway?”

“A hero? Well, apparently there’s a powerful magic technique in the SagaKingdom called Hero Summoning. I heard that the cost of the summoning isenormous, though, so they use it only during the sixty-six-year cycle of thedemon lords’ invasion.

“They say King Yamato and the first emperor of the Saga Kingdom were bothheroes called on by the Hero Summoning magic to save the world. Amazing, isn’tit?”

So heroes were summoned here, huh? Maybe they really were Japanese, then.Yamato was definitely a Japanese name, and even this emperor “Saga” could be,too. And the reason the swords had names like “Excalibur” and “Claíomh Solais”might be connected to that, too.

At any rate, this “Saga Empire” may just hold the key to getting back to myown world. For now, I wrote a note about it in the networking tab.

“So does this ‘sixty-six-year cycle’ mean you know when a demon lord willattack next?”

“It’s more like a period during which he could attack at any time. But as ofnow, we haven’t heard anything about one appearing.”

Hmm. I definitely feel like it could’ve happened a while ago, and word justhasn’t gotten around yet.

“Isn’t it possible that a demon lord’s been revived, and the army just hasn’theard about it?”

“The Shiga Kingdom and the Saga Empire have magical means of conveyingurgent information, so even if one came back and destroyed the city, wordwould still get to us.”

Wow, that’s impressive.

“Besides, before a demon lord appears, the revered priestess at every templewould receive a divine warning called the Oracle, so we would know about it inadvance.”

Even more impressive. These gods know what they’re doing!

“The Oracle is delivered before any major disaster, not just a demon lord. Butapparently, not a single priestess had a premonition about the starfall two daysago… Perhaps the Oracle didn’t appear because it was on the other side of thebarrier to the Valley of Dragons.”

Oh, that wall thing. So maybe it was in a different god’s domain and didn’tqualify for the Oracle or something?

“So a ‘demon lord’ probably has an army of monsters, right?”

“It seems to differ depending on the demon lord. Some have fought on theirown, but most of them lead big armies of demons or monsters into battle. Theysay some have even had human or demi-human armies.”

Huh! So there’s a lot of variety.

“But the most frightening subordinates a demon lord can have are helldemons. Even the lesser ones are as strong as that wyvern we fought the otherday.”

“Wow. You’d think ‘lesser’ would mean they’d be weak.”

“Hell demons are troublesome because they can only be harmed by magic ormagically imbued weapons.”

“So if there are lesser hell demons, are there also intermediate and greaterones?”

“Yes. They say intermediate hell demons can easily destroy a whole city.Generally, it takes a whole group of knights or royal sorcerers to defeat one. Theintermediate hell demons have higher resistance to magic, so weak spells won’twork on them.”

They can destroy an entire city? I feel bad for any hero who has to fight those.

But if that’s the intermediate level, does that mean there are even morepowerful ones?

“So what about the greater hell demons?”

“They’re on the same level as a dragon or a demon lord. No human can defeatthem. It’s the kind of opponent where you don’t think about how to win againstthem—just how to minimize your losses or run away.”

Then it’s on par with the fully grown dragon we talked about earlier, I guess.

Huh? Something’s nagging me at the back of my mind… Am I forgettingsomething? Oh well, I’m sure it’ll come back to me.

“So which is stronger, a demon lord or a dragon?”

“A dragon.”

Wow, that was fast.

“Once, a long time ago, there was a powerful demon lord who even defeated ahero… But he lost the battle against a dragon.”

“Then instead of summoning heroes, shouldn’t they just get a dragon to takecare of demon lords?”

“That’s impossible. A dragon might fight demons for fun, but it would nevertake them down for the sake of humans. And the casualties of a battle betweenthe two would be terrible—worse than the damage from a demon lord alone.”

I see… So it’s like the gods and the heroes have to collaborate to defeat thedemon lord before a dragon appears.

With the power of Meteor Shower, I might be on the level of a dragon rightnow. If a demon lord attacked and the hero fighting him lost, I’d use MeteorShower to kill him from a distance. I’m way too clumsy to fight one up close.

Too much serious conversation can be exhausting, so as we watched the sheepchewing on grass in the untilled fields, we chatted about our favorite and leastfavorite foods and such.

After we left the manor, we were planning to go to a well-known restaurant inthe plaza in front of the castle, but it was still a bit early for lunch, so wepostponed our trip into the inner wall and headed to the west quarter instead.

Apparently, there were alchemy shops there, so I wanted to check one out.

“In addition to stores catering to the not-so-wealthy citizens, there arebutchery shops, alchemists, and stores of that sort. There are other things there,too, but…” Zena had gotten embarrassed and stopped there.

From what I saw on the map, there were also pawnshops, moneylenders, andbrothels, at the very least. There was even a slave market on this very street.She’d probably been reluctant to talk about those things.

I had better not push the subject, or it might seem like I’m harassing her.

After we passed through an area selling groceries and other basic necessities,we started to see shops of a more dubious nature. Sexy ladies and unsavory-looking men were wandering around.

The plaza in the west quarter had plenty of street stalls, many auctioning offlivestock and cattle. On closer inspection, young boys and girls were lined up incages next to the cattle—slaves. I had seen a fair amount of slaves here already,but this kind of treatment was especially sickening.

I was tempted to buy all of them and set them free, but I was afraid I wouldn’t

be able to look after them in the end.

At the front of the plaza, a merchant-looking man was making announcementsabout the slave market. Apparently, it would be occurring for three nights,starting tomorrow evening.

Once we left the plaza, a line of brothels greeted us. The scene was strangelyreminiscent of a historical drama.

It would definitely be better to do perverted things with a lady in this line ofwork of her own free will. Why force a slave into it when you could be with awoman who knows her way around the bedroom and actually wants to bethere?

I wanna go to a bar with some pretty ladies tonight! I wonder if they havehostess bars here? I’d enjoy talking dirty with a woman rather than take abubble bath or whatever—Oh, shit. I probably shouldn’t be thinking about thiswhen I’m with a girl, even if we’re not involved. Sorry, sorry.

Along the outer wall, there were public park areas every few blocks. One ofthem looked to be full of people.

“Please stop a moment,” Zena suddenly commanded the driver, looking intothe crowd.

“What’s the matter, Zena?”

“Satou, look over there.”

Hmm? Isn’t that the tubby priest from yesterday?

“Let us punish these children of demons! Cast these sacred stones at themand pave the way to purity!” Amid the noise of the clamoring crowd, I couldhear the shrill voice of the priest shouting in a near-falsetto. I guess since hewasn’t getting anywhere with his expedition to the east quarter, he was nowtrying his shtick on his home turf in the west quarter.

Unlike last time, though, it seemed like this crowd was on the verge of rioting.Was this disturbance the “uproar” the priestess had whispered about before?

“Good people of virtue! Do you remember the starfall of a few days past,surely a sign of divine wrath?”

“YES!”

“We remember!”

“YEAH!”

At least half these people are either hired shills or people who just like yelling.

“And there is more! Just yesterday, a servant of the demon lord attacked thecount’s castle!”

“OH, LORD!”

“Please send a hero to save us!”

“NOOO!”

Hmm? Did that really happen? I glanced over at Zena and saw a troubled lookon her face.

“Someone rushed into the guardroom of the count’s castle yesterday and saidthere was a black shadow flying around, but none of the watchmen or the otherpeople on the grounds saw it.”

“Maybe they just made it up?”

“I don’t see why anyone would do that. I mean, that person was imprisoned inthe castle dungeon for disturbing the peace.”

The laws in this world sure are strict.

“This is proof that the protection of the gods is waning! Good citizens, wemust prove our virtue! If we perform enough righteous acts, we will beshielded from the coming storm!”

“Help us, Father!!”

“YEAH!”

“Virtue!!”

These people got worked up way too easily. Where was their sense ofskepticism?

“We must accrue proof of our virtue! Do you understand, good citizens?Virtue!”

“VIRTUUUE!”

“YEEEAH!”

“TELL US HOW!!”

Pyramid schemes and telephone scams would be really successful here.

“Look at these creatures!”

The fat priest pointed accusingly at something in the center of the plaza.

“These demi-humans are failed hell demons… No, the spawn of the demonlord himself! Prove your integrity through the good deed of enacting divinejustice!”

“YEEEAH!”

“LET’S KILL ’EM!!!”

Whoa, okay—calm down.

“Wait! Pious citizens!! To kill them would be against the laws of thiskingdom. We must hold back!”

“Then what do we do, Father?!”

“KILL ’EM!!!”

Yeah, a lot of these guys were just here to yell.

“We cannot kill them—but we can cast these holy stones at the demonspawn!”

“FATHER!!”

“GIVE US THE STONES!!”

“YES!”

I looked where the chubby priest was pointing and saw three beastfolk girls: acat-eared girl, a dog-eared girl, and a lizard girl chained up in a frightenedhuddle.

“But it won’t be free! Buying the stones with your own money is righteousindeed!”

“YEEEAH!”

“VIRTUUUE!!”

Oh-ho, not so many this time.

“The stones are one copper each! And to show my generosity, I’ll give youfive stones for one large copper!”

The responses stopped. This was a frugal crowd.

“Devout men and women! Why do you hesitate? We have only so manystones, you know! This good deed is first come, first served!”

“I’LL TAKE ONE!”

“Sell ’em to me!”

“YEAH!”

“Form a line!”

Was this chubby priest using mind-control magic or something?

The people who bought the stones wasted no time in throwing them at thebeastfolk girls. They weren’t holding back at all, either. Shit! Are you serious?!

“I can’t watch this anymore! I’ll be right back. Satou, wait here, please.”

A gallant Zena jumped down from the carriage and dashed into the heart ofthe commotion. I was so impressed that it took me a moment to react.

“Kill the demi-humans!!”

“YEAH!”

“Punish the demons!”

The reptilian girl was protecting the smaller girls. The crowd around them washeated, but the stones that actually hit the girls were relatively sparse.

I saw one person raising his hand to throw another stone, so I put a penny coinin the palm of my hand and flicked it at him, striking his fingers so that hedropped the rock. I was a little nervous about hitting anyone nearby, but sincemy “Throwing” skill was so high, I had a feeling I wouldn’t miss.

Alarmed by this and perhaps noticing that the stones in their hands were just

ordinary rocks, the people holding them stopped for a moment. That should buyZena enough time to protect the girls with magic.

But while it was easy enough to step in this time, there was no real point if itwas just going to happen again…

As I stared at the beastfolk kids, an AR display appeared as usual to providemore details about them.

Aha!

I absorbed the information as quickly as I could.

The display had shown me a key fact: the name of the girls’ master.

It wasn’t the chubby priest. So where was this guy? Was he not here at all, andthat was why he wasn’t intervening? Or maybe—was he the priest’saccomplice?!

Lately, I’d been depending on the AR displays alone for my information, butnow it was time for the Search Entire Map spell to shine.

I looked up the owner’s name on the map. There he is! At the very edge of theplaza. The girls’ master was a small man, sitting on a wooden crate and watchingthe commotion in the plaza with a wily grin. I inspected the AR box.

His name was Urs, thirty-nine years old. Skills: “Fraud,” “Persuasion,”“Intimidation.” Owned slaves: “Cat,” “Dog,” “Lizard.”

…Hmm? The slaves were listed only by their race, not their name? Wait, thatwasn’t important right now. More information! I didn’t have enough yet.

Affiliation: “Seiryuu City—lower-class citizen.” Guild: “Street Rats.” …That’s it!I searched the map for Street Rats members.

The guild had fifty-two total members. Ten of them were currently in the plaza,including Urs. Aside from him and the big guy beside him who seemed to be abodyguard, the other eight appeared to be planted in the crowd.

I marked all the members of the guild, even the ones who weren’t currentlypresent, just in case.

All right, time to make my move!

> Skill Acquired: “Secret Maneuvers”

But I must have been more shaken up by the treatment of the beastfolk slavesthan I’d realized, because I overlooked a key fact. I couldn’t turn back time, but ifI had thought a little longer before taking this first step, maybe the outcomewould’ve been different.

Zena seemed to have reached the chubby priest.

“Stop this inhumane treatment at once!”

“What was that, little girl? Are you an ally of the hell demons, too?!”

“Ally”? What happened to “spawn”? And he used a loaded question to makeit hard for her to respond. This guy really is an expert agitator.

“Those who align themselves with demons are demons themselves!”

“YEAH!”

While Zena bought me time, I had to do something about the shills plantedamong the crowd.

“Don’t try to deceive these people! Does Zaicuon Temple intend to break thelaw?!”

“What wrong is there in casting holy stones at these foul beastfolk?” Thisconversation was getting nowhere—or maybe the priest was deliberatelydodging the subject.

I climbed down from the carriage and pushed into the throng, making my waywith the combination of my “Evasion” skill and years of experience with crowded

trains.

“GET ’EM!”

“Let’s throw the stones at her, too!!”

“YEAH!”

It looked like Zena had already cast Wind Protection in advance. The spellprotected not only her but the beastfolk kids as well. Leave it to a magic soldierfrom the count’s army.

Now I had to break this up before the crowd turned into a mob. Even Zenawould be in trouble if a huge group closed in on her.

I moved toward a man who was stirring up everyone around him even as hekept throwing stones. To neutralize him, I maxed out the level of my “Hand-to-Hand Combat” skill. Thanks to that, I suddenly knew how best to knock themunconscious without killing someone.

I incapacitated the man with one blow.

It was just an instant’s movement, so the people around us didn’t take anynotice. I pretended to be a friend concerned that the man was going through about of anemia and carried him to the edge of the plaza, dumping him in analleyway. I didn’t have enough time to restrain him, so I just left him there.

> Skill Acquired: “Acting”

> Skill Acquired: “Abduction”

> Skill Acquired: “Assassination”

The “Abduction” skill seemed like it might be useful for this, so I maxed it out. Ididn’t want the “Assassination” skill, though. No thank you!

In the center of the plaza, a young man in the garb of a different temple hadcome to Zena’s aid. “The only one claiming that demi-humans are kin to demonsis the Zaicuon Temple—no, only you!”

“Ah, the head of the ever-philanthropic Garleon Temple. If you’re so fond ofthe beasts, you’re welcome to use them however you’d like once we’re throughpunishing them!”

Gross… This guy is seriously the worst. I was surprised to see that Zena hadn’tturned bright red. Maybe she didn’t realize what he meant? Good.

“Kill them!!”

“Punish the demon spawn!”

“Yeah!”

I left the dramatic standoff to Zena and the new priest. I had some pest controlto do.

I knocked out another Street Rat and then another, stowing them away innearby alleys. Taking an extra second, I planted beer bottles near their hands foreffect.

“Do you realize what you’re doing? If you keep working up their anxiety andturn this crowd into a mob, the Zaicuon Temple will be held responsible fortreason!”

“Hmph—you’re nothing but a foolish lizard, playing at borrowing the power ofdragons! You’re telling me not to kill the demons? Doesn’t that make you atraitor yourself?!”

“Kill the demons!”

“That girl must be one in disguise!!”

“Get ’em!”

I’d taken out about half of them by now.

The yells from the crowd had died down significantly, too. There was one guyleft who was still shouting loudly, but he didn’t seem to be a member of theStreet Rats. I marked him for now.

I’d have a chat with him after I finished my purge.

“People of the west quarter! All of us feel the same unease. But we must notbecome cowards who punish the weak out of fear!”

“Do you hear that? The Garleon priest condemns you all as evil! He condemnsyou for seeking out virtue!”

The crowd roared in response to the fat priest’s incendiary words, but not as

loudly as before.

“Kill the demons!”

“That priest’s a fraud!!”

“Yeah!”

All right, two to go. I took them down easily and rolled them into an alley.

But before bringing Urs onto the stage, there was one last bit of preparation todo: I had to contact the man who was still yelling loudly in the plaza.

> Skill Acquired: “Scheming”

“Please end this already. No matter how many stones you throw, I’ll stop themall!”

“How dare you get in the way of our sacred deed?! You are a fool to defy ourgod!” the fat priest shrieked, but the replies from the crowd were scarcer thanever. And the remaining voices were disappearing one after the other.

I crept up behind Urs and tapped him on the shoulder. “It’s your turn now.”

“Wh-who the hell are you?! Oi, Banze! Come crush this twerp!” Startled, Ursjerked his chin toward the large man behind him. But unfortunately for him,when he turned around, his bodyguard was nowhere to be found.

“Banze? Where did that half-wit go?!”

“If you mean the big guy, he went off somewhere with a woman.” In reality, Ihad just knocked him out and left him in the back streets.

Without further ado, I kicked Urs in the solar plexus with my toe, causing himto faint in agony, then dragged him into the plaza.

“Everyone, please break this up! If this continues, the count’s army really willcome to stop you. If you’re worried, come to the temple instead! We’ll listen toyour fears.”

“Are you trying to defy God’s will?! You godless fool!”

Uh, both of you are priests, though.

I tossed the unconscious Urs down between them.

“Lord Urs?! Why, you! What have you done to this faithful follower whooffered up his slaves?! You apostate!”

Okay, I’m just gonna ignore the fat priest.

“Sorry I took so long, Zena. And thank you for your work, too, Sir Priest. This isthe man behind this scheme.”

“Amazing, Satou! Your agility really is the best thing about you!” I’m not sure ifthat’s really a compliment, Zena.

“This man is the culprit?” the young priest asked quizzically. I nodded at himwith a smile. I had some things to do before I could stop and introduce myself.

“Zena, do you have enough power left to make my voice reach the wholeplaza?”

“Yes! … Whisper Wind Kaze no Sasayaki!”

I lifted up the unconscious Urs for the crowd. His body doubled as cover so Iwouldn’t be too conspicuous myself.

“Can you see him, everyone? This is the man behind the curtain! He loanedhis slaves to the Zaicuon Temple to prey on your fears and fool you all intobuying a bunch of ordinary pebbles with your hard-earned money!”

> Skill Acquired: “Judgment”

“Give us our money baaack!” cried one noticeably loud voice from within thecrowd. Rallied by this, the people in the plaza began a chant of “Give it back!Give it back!”

“And he had an even deeper motive! On top of making a quick buck with thispriest, his real goal was to provoke all of you into rebelling against the count.This man is the real demon worshipper!”

My “Fabrication” skill is working great!

The part about making money was probably true, at least. The rest of it was astretch. To be honest, I didn’t really know yet what his goal had been—I was justembellishing for good measure.

> Skill Acquired: “False Accusation”

If their goal was just to make money, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense. Even ifthey sold one hundred “holy stones,” they’d make only five silver coins. Thatwouldn’t even make up for the cost of the three slaves; according to my“Estimation” skill, they were worth at least six silver coins. And if things had goneon that way for much longer, those girls would have died.

Right? It just didn’t add up.

“Was this man controlling the hell demons from the shaaadows?!”

That was the loud man from earlier. I had asked him to yell things to turnpeople against the chubby priest, but I felt like he was missing the point a bit.Saying stuff like that might just freak people out and cause another riot.

Hmm? Hell demons?

That’s right… Now I remember!

When I first came to this city…

“Heh-heh-heh…”

Still held aloft with his arms pinned behind him, Urs laughed in a strange,stuffy voice. He shouldn’t have been able to move at all, but suddenly, two blackarms shot out to attack.

The poisonous talons tore through the body of the chubby priest.

…I’d noticed a single hell demon was already living here.

The head priest of Zaicuon Temple died instantly, his vital organs ripped toshreds. I couldn’t even react to the brutal murder taking place before my eyes.

“What the hell…are these…?”

The violent black arms with their sharp claws were sprouting from somewherearound Urs’s chest. Down on one knee on the ground, he coughed up blood ashe stared at his own chest in dumbfounded amazement.

“A hell demon! Everyone, leave the plaza at once!” The young priest was thefirst to get ahold of himself and shout a warning to the people in the area,backing away from the poisonous claws. Then he began to chant an incantationin a strong baritone.

The people still in the plaza took one look at the appendages sprouting fromUrs’s chest and fled in all directions. The evil clawed arms seemed to have a willof their own, a separate entity from Urs, and they tried to attack in our direction—but Urs had dropped to the ground and sat frozen in shock, so they couldn’treach.

“Satou, grab those girls and get them out of here! I’m going to find help!”

“R-right!”

Embarrassingly enough, it wasn’t until Zena shouted orders at me that I finallycame to my senses and realized what I had to do.

First, I had to get the beastfolk girls out of harm’s way. Otherwise, what wasthe point in taking on that fathead priest? I ran over and put all my strength intotrying to break their chains; instead, the stake they were bound to popped out ofthe ground. Not exactly what I’d planned, but at least they should be able tomove now.

“It’s not safe here—you have to run away! I can’t get your chains off, so you’llhave to move together and try to hide in the shadows of a sturdy building.”

But the three girls didn’t move an inch. It looked like there was another reasonthey couldn’t move.

“He gave us an order…so we can’t…,” the cat-eared girl mumbled in atrembling voice devoid of all hope.

“He told us not to move.”

“I’m terribly sorry. Our master, Urs, told us not to move from this spot… If wedisobey, our enslavement collars will tighten completely. Please, forget about usand go.”

The dog-eared girl and the scalefolk girl, whose back was bleeding, shook theirheads almost apologetically.

At that moment, help came from an unexpected source.

“Charge! Defeat the hell demon!”

The same people who’d been chucking “holy stones” at the beastfolk girls werenow throwing them at Urs and the arms sprouting from his chest. The man

shouting the orders was the loudmouthed guy I’d bought over to my side earlier.

With a crack, Urs’s neck twisted at an unnatural angle. Instinctively, I lookedaway.

They sure value lives cheaply in this world. To think they’d try to kill thedemon, Urs and all, without a moment’s hesitation…

Maybe I’m just too much of a pacifist.

“Ah! The demon’s getting up! Everybody hide!”

I turned my head upon hearing the loud man’s shout, and I saw that what hadbeen the crumpled corpse of Urs was rising back up without bending its limbs,like a video being rewound. He looked like a zombie.

Black mist oozed out of Urs’s body. I glanced over at the young priest, but hewas still in the middle of his chant. That incantation is way too long.

“You worms… You’re doing me a favor by smashing up my host’s head. I,grateful!”

Maybe it was just because of the strange way the demon spoke, but forwhatever reason, I didn’t feel as afraid as I probably should have been.

“… Circle of Anti-Evil Fuuma no Enjin!”

“How clever. I, amused!”

The young priest finally finished invoking his spell, creating a circle of light thatsealed in the demon. Despite his snickering, it didn’t seem like the creature couldescape the magic circle. Without pause, the young priest started a second chant.

“Grrr… Cannot use magic with a human’s voice! I, frustrated.”

The people on the street peered nervously in our direction from the shadowsof nearby buildings. Tearing through Urs’s body, the real form of the hell demonemerged.

He was a strange creature, like a large eyeball that had sprouted arms andwings. Just looking at him was chipping away at my sanity stat.

“Hur-hur-hur-hur. There, can speak more easily now. I, delighted!”

This way was actually even harder to understand.

And the thing didn’t seem to have a mouth, so where was he even speakingfrom? Was he making the giant eyeball vibrate like a speaker or something?

…Wait, that’s not important at all.

This had to be the “disaster” the Oracle predicted. The riot from earlier wasjust an opening act.

I turned toward the demon. His AR label had changed from Urs to Lesser HellDemon. His name was there, too, but in phonetic symbols instead of normalcharacters.

Without taking my eyes off him, I checked and saw that the beastfolk girlswere now Masterless after Urs’s death. Doesn’t that mean the kids can movenow?

“… Sacred Javelin Seinaru Yari!”

A javelin of light flew from the young priest.

“I, amused!”

The fiend howled, and an inky-black barrier formed around him, diverting thepath of the javelin. So not only could he speak now, but he really could usemagic, too.

With another howl, the demon destroyed the magic circle at his feet.

“All that panic…the anxiety and fear…the prejudice and conceit… It suits myneeds perfectly! I, content!”

This is bad. If he attacks with magic now, I won’t be able to protect these kids.

Should I try to beat him to the punch? But if I didn’t defeat him in one blow, I’dbe putting the girls in more danger.

I heard another cry from the monster, this one noticeably longer and louder.

“And thus, will now create a nesting hole in this ground for my lord. He will bemost pleased! I, hardworking!”

His “lord”? Don’t tell me he means a demon lord?!

A dark circle of magic spread out with the eyeball demon at its center. Shit.This is definitely some kind of attack magic. I picked up the three girls in my

arms, ready to make a break for it. The young priest, too, carried an elderlyperson as he ran for safety.

At that moment, with the worst timing possible, Zena returned leading a groupof soldiers from the count’s army.

“Satou! I brought reinforcements!”

I could see steam rising from Zena’s skin; she must have run like crazy. Judgingby how fast they’d arrived, this group had probably been sent to suppress theriot the fat priest had been stirring up. Their metal armor clanking loudly, thearmy detachment readied their huge shields to try to surround the hell demon.

“Zena, wait! He’s is casting some kind of spell! Stay back!”

I hesitated for a moment between whether to repeat my warning to Zena or tocarry the kids immediately to safety, but I never had a chance to decide.

The ground under my feet warped like an effect from some old movie. Thoughstill solid, it suddenly glowed a dark violet, bent, twisted around, and pulled usunder. In a flash, the world around me was plunged into darkness.

When my vision returned, we were in some sort of cave. A faint purple glowrising from the ground meant I could more or less see. Though the ground wasstill mostly the same, everything else around me was made of sheer rock. Therewas a single exit in one of the walls of the thirty-square-foot space.

The only other people in this place besides me were the three beastfolk girlsstill held in my arms. No Zena, of course, and no sign of the eyeball demon. Thetroops she’d brought were nowhere to be seen, either.

“Welcome to my lord’s labyrinth. It has no name yet, but it will soon producedemons to play with you. You should be grateful! I, diligent!”

The voice echoed from some unknown source. It didn’t seem to be telepathy,but…?

The cat-eared girl was pointing up at a corner of the ceiling. Apparently, thevoice was coming from an air hole up there.

“Now amuse me with all your fear! Kill each other! Steal from each other! I,

pleased!” The demon paused for a moment before speaking again. “…Resignation will hollow out your souls. I, disgusted!

“Thus, have made it so all the rooms are connected to the exit. I, fair!

“Looking forward to the moment your hope gives way to despair. Fight tosurvive, you worms! I, excited!”

…I see.

So this is the start of the “Escape from the Labyrinth!” mandatory mission,huh?

> Title Acquired: Labyrinth Explorer

Labyrinth

Satou here. I think I first took an interest in getting into the gamingbusiness when I was a kid and got obsessed with one of my dad’s games,a dungeon-crawler where you explored a labyrinth. I’ll never forget myexcitement when I found an ultrarare sword in that game.

Checking the map, I saw our location was now marked as Demon’s Labyrinth:Bottom Floor, with no displayed paths.

…I guess I knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

Still, this transition from a light city adventure to a sudden dungeon encounterhad been way too sudden; if this were a tabletop RPG, I’d be worried about thegame master’s mental health right about now.

…Oh dear. More important, the beastfolk kids seemed pretty scared. I shouldcheck in with them first. Might as well start with introductions, right?

“My name is Satou. I’m a peddler.”

“Cat!”

“I’m Dog, sir.”

“And I am Lizard.”

Are those really their names?

Their previous masters, not just Urs, had called them that. The dog-eared andcat-eared girls had been slaves since they were little, but apparently, thescalefolk girl had been enslaved as an adult, so she had a name at least. But itsounded like a raspy, scraping sound, so I couldn’t pronounce it.

In the end, they wanted me to give them names that would be easy to say, so Idecided to call them Pochi, Tama, and Liza. I half expected them to get mad atbeing given such pet-like names, but I was pretty confident that if I gave themnormal ones, I’d immediately get them mixed up. I figured this would at least

work until we got out of the labyrinth.

Liza didn’t actually come from lizard but from the first two syllables of hermostly unpronounceable real name. And Pochi and Tama are popular names inJapan for dogs and cats, respectively.

Now then—before our escape began, some first aid was in order.

I took out some towels and the Well Bag, plus the shells that held that salve. Ihad picked these up as souvenirs for Martha and the others, but I could alwaysbuy more once I got out of here.

“Use these towels and the Well Bag water to disinfect any open wounds. Thenyou can put on this salve and wrap them in cloth. Don’t use the same cloth youcleaned them with, though.”

I handed some new towels to the three of them, but they just lookedperplexed. Right… Whenever I tried to talk to them normally, at least at first,they got confused unless I used a more commanding tone. It was like I wasbabysitting my younger relatives all over again.

“What’s wrong? Don’t worry—I’ll look the other way while you’re doing it.”

But apparently, it wasn’t so much that they were being shy—it was justunusual for slaves to be given high-quality towels and salves and the like, so theywere taken aback.

“Thank you, sir. You don’t need to look the other way, sir.”

“What pretty cloth. I’m so happy!”

“Um…young master, mightn’t it be better to hold on to such things…water andmedicine, that is…for your own use…?”

Pochi and Tama undressed without hesitation, untying the hemp cord aroundtheir sack dresses and beginning the first aid treatment. If it weren’t for theirears and tails, they’d be indistinguishable from normal human children.

Pochi had bobbed brown hair, while Tama’s hair was short, white, and choppy.Liza’s waist-length red hair was tied near the bottom. She was still hesitant,perhaps the type to overthink, but when I phrased it as an order, she began touse the supplies like the other two.

Liza, too, would have looked like a normal female human if she didn’t havesuch a splendid tail and orange scales that covered part of her body. The scalesextended a ways from her tail as well as from her neck to her shoulders, herelbows to her fingertips, and her knees to her toes. From what I could tellthrough her clothes, her chest was pretty flat.

When it seemed enough time had passed for them to finish their first aid, Iturned back and offered them some baked goods. They were the honeyedpastries I’d bought as souvenirs when I was walking around with Zena. They wereonly about the size of my palm, though, and I had just three for each girl. Still, itshould be enough to fill their stomachs for a while.

Pochi was visibly drooling as she looked at the pastries, but none of themmoved to eat anything. So they needed permission to eat? Slavery was evenworse than I’d thought.

“No need to hold back. Just go ahead and eat them.”

“Yummyyy!”

“It’s so sweet and tast—”

Pochi started choking, so I handed her the Well Bag.

“Take your time, okay? I won’t ask for them back or anything.”

This was weirdly like being a babysitter.

“Baked pastries made with honey… I…” Liza was at a loss for words. Thatseems like a bit of an overreaction for a handful of pastries.

I looked at the map again, but it still didn’t show anything outside this room.

Maybe magic didn’t work here, or its effects were limited somehow.

I opened my menu and selected the Search Entire Map spell. If that didn’twork, I was going to have to carefully map this all out myself.

That concern was quickly put to rest. When I used the spell, the entireDemon’s Labyrinth was immediately revealed to me. The combination of thismagic and my map was just entirely too convenient. What is this, easy mode?

Though I could see every path in the dungeon, it was difficult to understand

the labyrinth’s layout from the 2-D display, so I switched over to 3-D. In wargames like WW, the land’s height variations could become a major factor, so 3-Dmaps were indispensable.

The map could even be rotated now, so I looked at it from various angles. Fromthis vantage point, the place seemed less like a labyrinth than an ant farm. Thepaths branched out like the roots of a tree to form various rooms, then divergedback into more pathways.

There were areas that crossed through multiple levels and shortcutsconnecting other rooms, too. It was all decidedly dungeon-like.

By my estimates, about 159 people were in the labyrinth. Seven of these weredemi-humans, and the other 152 were humans, with about a quarter of the totalbeing slaves. The troops sent to suppress the riot consisted of about 50 people,split up into three groups.

It looked like Zena was in one of those groups, too. Going by the map, it didn’tseem likely that we’d run into each other, but she should be all right if she waswith her fellow soldiers.

If anything, I wished they’d come to my rescue.

The young Garleon priest was even farther away from me than Zena. If wewere going to come together, it would most likely be near the exit. He seemedlike a capable person who I’d prefer not to die, but he also could probably takecare of himself, so I guess I’d just count myself lucky if we ran into each other.

If only I could contact them somehow, I could lead everyone to the surface.Somehow, a player chat function wasn’t among all the usually useful features ofthe menu.

For some reason, though, the eyeball demon didn’t show up in my map search.There was one room that was particularly deep in the heart of the dungeon, so Ifigured maybe he’d be there, but…

It definitely wouldn’t be fun if I stupidly beat him too early only to have thewhole labyrinth collapse because he’d been defeated, so I’d leave him alone, too.

Most of the enemies seemed to be bug-type demons from levels 10 to 20.When I first searched the map, there were only about twenty of them, but eachtime I searched again, there were more, and by then it had reached around ahundred. More varieties were appearing, too, such as frogs and snakes. Each hadthe title Primitive Demon. Did this mean they’d been made when the dungeonwas generated? I didn’t think the wyvern I saw before had a title like that.

This room was a dead end with only one exit; it’d be bad if we got attacked aswe tried to proceed. Should I give these three weapons, too? Okay, I’ll justpretend I found them in the shadows of a passageway and give them somespears or javelins out of Storage.

Once I started heading toward the first passage, the three girls panicked andchased after me.

“Don’t abandon us! We’ll do anything, sir!”

“Don’t leave us here!”

“Young master, please bring us with you, even if just to use me as a shield. Ibeg of you…”

They were imploring me desperately, yet none of them attempted to grab atmy clothes. Was this because of their experience, or training, as slaves?

“I’m sorry I scared you. I was just going to try to take a better look at thepassageway. I won’t desert you, so don’t worry.” I spoke as gently as possible. Iwas pretty sure they’d be upset even if I told them not to be, but I still felt it wasbetter to say it than not.

As I waited for the three girls to finish eating, I took out a short sword and theMagic Gun from my bag and equipped them. The latter was about the size of ahandgun, and it fired magic as bullets instead of lead. I could also adjust howmuch magic it used without limitations, even if I wanted to fire the smallestbullets possible for just one MP each, so its cost performance was highlyeffective.

In my case, my MP regenerated at a rate of about three points a second, so Iessentially had unlimited ammo. It reminded me of the early days of FPSweapons, but since there was a tenth of a second’s delay when I pulled thetrigger, it was a bit difficult to use.

Of the three beastfolk, the only one with any combat skills was Liza, who hadthe “Spear” skill. I couldn’t very well just pull a spear out of my bag, though, so Igave her a short sword for now. She hesitated a little—maybe it was unusual togive a slave a weapon—but I insisted.

I went ahead as the advance guard and put Liza in back to take care of anysurprise attacks from behind, despite her protests that she could go in front. Ihave the radar, so there won’t be any surprise attacks, but I bet having a roleassigned will make her feel a little better.

So the marching order was me, Tama, Pochi, then Liza. I firmly commandedthem not to jump into battle unless I told them to do so. They were only aroundlevel 2 or 3, so if they took a hit from a monster, it’d probably kill them.

I guess this was an escort mission now.

The passageway walls were made up of the same stone as the floor. There was

no more luminescence from below, so it was quite dark. Luckily, there wereglowing stone pillars every couple of feet, so while the shadows of the cave werecertainly disconcerting, walking wasn’t a problem.

The posts were about waist height, but the light reached only as far as mychest, so it was unfortunately impossible to see the ceiling. This was probably adeliberate design to cause more anxiety. How very pleasant.

Maybe they were there because if the passageways were completely dark, wewould just want to stay in the rooms and hide.

“Tama, if you see anything ahead of us on the path, please tell me quietly.Pochi, let me know if you notice any strange smells or noises. And Liza, I’mcounting on you to watch our backs. Just don’t get so occupied with it that youfall behind.”

“Okies!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Understood!”

They still seemed anxious, but their responses were solid.

> Skill Acquired: “Direction”

> Skill Acquired: “Organization”

Hmm. These must be party-related skills. They looked useful, so I distributedsome skill points to each of them.

Relevant knowledge about arranging and deploying party members appearedin my mind. Apparently, I could check and revise their relative positions, too.

As we continued through the passage, an enemy appeared on my radar. It wasstill a fair distance away from us.

Poking her head out into the darkness of the passageway and sniffing a fewtimes, Pochi made her report. “I smell blood from up ahead, sir.”

The distance in a straight line wasn’t that far, but along the curves of thepassage it must have been about a third of a mile. I patted Pochi on the head,praising her sharp nose. It felt a little weird to treat her like a pet, but her tail

was wagging enthusiastically, so she seemed happy.

As we drew closer, I checked the enemy’s info on the map. It was level 20, withno special abilities; its attacks were “Tackle” and “Bite.” There was only one, andit was in the next room.

Something occurred to me, and I made a note of the three girls’ statuses. I wassurprised to find that there was an EXP field in their info. Seriously, is this agame? Their experience was shown in percentages, so I couldn’t get a concretenumber, but it was convenient to know how close they were to their next level.

I couldn’t see the EXP bars of any other people on the map. Was it limited tomy party members? Or was there some other condition involved?

A light escaping from the next room came into view. I told the other three towait, and I peered into the space. A giant insect enemy, which apparently hadn’tnoticed me, was eating…something. Ugh… Like I said, I have a very low tolerancefor blood and gore.

If I lose, is it going to eat me like that, too? Given the differences in our levels,it was hard to see how I could lose, but that didn’t make me feel much better.

How do the protagonists of stories and legends fight crap like that withoutfreaking out?

The smell of blood, wafting downwind to me, made my gutless heart weak.Maybe we can just hole up in the room we came from and wait for help toarrive.

“Young master, forgive my arrogance, but I wonder if we couldn’t perhapssneak past the monster while it eats its prey, or else use the element of surpriseto attack it from behind?” Timidly, Liza offered her thoughts. Surely she wasafraid, too. In fact, I could see that her slender limbs were shaking.

Even the girls with their single-digit levels are trying to figure out what we cando to move forward, and here I am with my tail between my legs. How did Ithink anyone would find us and come to our aid, anyway?

I definitely couldn’t do close-quarters combat, but maybe I could just fire froma distance with my Magic Gun. My magic was strong enough to pulverize hugerocks, so it should be enough to take down this giant monster, too.

I blocked out the sound of chewing and fired at it with the gun—at maximumpower, of course.

My first shot missed, but the bug monster didn’t notice that it was underattack. Just like when I had shot the rock before, I still hadn’t received a“Shooting” skill.

The magic bullets glowed, so I could see their trajectory in the dark room. Thecreature noticed me after the second shot, but once I adjusted my aim, I wasable to hit it with my third just as it scuttled around to face me.

Since the gun was on its highest power setting, the bullet tore the creature’shind legs from its joints. Before it could get an inch closer, I took down the giantcamel-cricket monster with a rapid-fire barrage.

It was such a complete victory that my worrying from just moments agoseemed ridiculous.

> Skill Acquired: “Shooting”

> Skill Acquired: “Sniping”

> Skill Acquired: “Aim”

> Title Acquired: Bug Killer

I thought camel crickets only lived in the desert, giant or otherwise…

“Super amazing, sir!”

“So strong!”

It was all thanks to the Magic Gun, so receiving compliments felt a littleuncomfortable. Pochi and Tama were in high spirits, but it looked like somethingwas still troubling Liza.

“That’s a very strangely shaped wand, young master. You can use magic withit?”

“This is a magic weapon. Just don’t tell anyone, okay?” I warned them for now.Liza nodded meekly, but Pochi and Tama replied with such an enthusiastic“’kaaay!” that I made a note to go over this with them again once we got out ofthe labyrinth.

The bottom segments of the creature’s detached limbs looked to be theperfect shape for a staff or a spear. They weren’t anything like normal insect legs—they seemed almost artificial. Maybe I can create a makeshift spear out ofthis?

I used the Magic Gun to detach the rod-shaped part of a hind leg. The clawedend felt a little loose, so I pulled out a slim block of wood and a leather strapfrom my bag and used them to fix it in place. Green liquid was leaking out theend, so I wrapped it in the same cloth we’d used to clean wounds earlier.

> Skill Acquired: “Disassembly”

> Skill Acquired: “Entomology”

> Skill Acquired: “Demonology”

> Skill Acquired: “Weapon Crafting”

> Skill Acquired: “Leather Crafting”

> Skill Acquired: “Woodworking”

As usual, these seemed way too easy to obtain.

The spear I’d just built looked like it would fall apart from a single stab, so thistime I maxed out my new “Weapon Crafting” skill and used it to make a new one.The knowledge granted by “Entomology” and “Demonology” told me to cut anotch into the hind leg with my short sword and snap it off.

Ew, that felt gross.

I shaved down the remaining leg with the short sword. This seemed to be amagic weapon, too, because its sharp edge was far better than what I’d seenused in the count’s army.

Last time, I’d bound the end with leather and wood, but this time I’d be usinganother piece of the monster itself. I could use its own tissue to bind it together,and the pieces would fuse automatically thanks to the creature’s powerfulregeneration abilities. I wasn’t sure how or why this worked when the monsterwas already dead, but when I tried it out, the knowledge granted by my newskills was dead-on: The tissues fused into place.

Just to be sure, I tied a leather strap around it for reinforcement.

This still felt weirdly surreal and gamelike, but since this spear was far superiorto the first one I’d rigged together, I guess I had nothing to complain about.

I turned to offer the completed camel-cricket spear to Liza, only to find thatshe was hard at work with her short sword on the spot that connected thecreature’s head to its back.

…What, is she hungry?

“Liza, if you eat that, you’ll get a stomachache for sure.”

“Er…I’m not going to eat it. If this is a demon, it should have a core, so Ithought I’d try to retrieve it…”

Core? “What’s a core?”

“Basically, it’s money. All monsters and demons have a core at their center,and if you give it to a peddler, you can exchange it for various things.”

Liza’s response wasn’t quite what I’d been looking to hear, but I guess Ishouldn’t have expected her to just rattle off information like a wiki. I watchedas she pulled out a sphere covered in emerald-green blood. It was red, about thesize of a fist. The color was really cloudy, though, so it certainly couldn’t serve asa jewel.

When Liza returned with the spear, I handed her a small jute bag from mysatchel. I also pulled out a used piece of cloth to wipe off the blood.

“Put the core in this bag for now. Oh, and use this spear.”

I handed off the bag to Pochi and gave the spear to Liza. The short sword she’dbeen using went to Tama instead. Switching equipment like this definitely makesme feel like I’m in an RPG.

The short sword proved to be a bit too much for Tama to hold. The manaclesattached to her collar were probably in the way. Oh, maybe we can cut them offnow.

I called Liza over and had her pull the chains taut, then used the Magic Gun’slowest power setting to shoot them off. Then I did the same for Pochi andTama…but their ears had flattened with fear, so I pet their heads gently andapologized.

I put their shackles in a bag and handed it to Pochi along with the bagged core.

“Liza, starting with the next enemy, I’ll have Pochi and Tama take turnsretrieving the cores, so please teach them how to do it.”

“Yes, understood.”

“Okay, sir!”

“’kay!”

They all seem pretty motivated, so that’s good, at least.

Also, something else had been bothering me. “Oh, and Pochi…”

“Yes, sir?”

“You don’t need to go out of your way to add ‘sir’ to everything, you know.”

“But if I forget it, I’ll be punished, sir.”

“I see…” I had thought she was just being polite, but she was doing it becauseshe felt she had to? I’m just their temporary master, so I don’t need to correcther. “Well, I won’t get angry if you don’t use it, so do whatever you’d like.”

“Okay…sir.”

I pressed my hands together and said a little prayer for the monster’s victim,wishing him happiness in his next life. I also made a note of the deceased’s namebefore we left the room.

I compared the girls’ stats to before, but aside from a slight decrease instamina, nothing seemed to have changed; their EXP hadn’t gone up at all. Sothey can’t get experience just by being in my party, huh? Then how do themembers of supply units and priests and such raise their levels?

If they could level up, I wouldn’t stand out too much during our escape, even ifmore people joined us. But I guess that would have been too easy.

Well, since this is like a game, why don’t I try approaching it the same way?

“Tama, if you find any rocks about the size of that core, please pick them up.”

“’kay!”

Not long after, the path diverged into two. It looked like both ways ultimately

connected to the same room, but one of the paths had another chamber alongthe way. We would run into monsters no matter which route we chose, but inthe additional area on the second path, there was a pair of level 10 hornwormmonsters. And a little farther down, there were a few survivors.

…I guess we should save them, huh?

“The paths fork here, meow,” Tama reported once the crossroads came intoview. No need to start with the weird speaking quirks now. I patted her head;she seemed pleased.

Now Pochi looked envious, so I gave her a quick pat, too. Both of them cameup to only my chest, so it was easy enough. They were about three and a halffeet, maybe? And Liza was taller than me—about five five.

“Let’s take the path on the right.”

We proceeded along the passageway. According to my radar, I should beseeing a monster by now…

“There’s a bug above us, sir,” Tama reported. Now she’s imitating Pochi?

And how was I supposed to defeat an enemy I couldn’t see?

…Oh, I know! I’m not sure if this is gonna work, but let’s try it out.

I used the radar to figure out roughly where it was and looked in that direction.Moments later, an AR box popped up to display the monster’s name and level.

Perfect! I fired indiscriminately at that general area, keeping the Magic Gun’spower setting at its lowest. One of them must have hit, because the hornwormmonster dropped to the ground.

“Tama, throw a stone at it!”

Tama hurled three rocks at the monster. Two of them hit and bounced off,with only one of them causing damage.

The hornworm slowly inched closer.

“Pochi, Tama, get back. Liza, come up here. Stay behind me, but hit it oncewith your spear!”

The hornworm attempted a tackle, and I warded it off with my weakest kick to

buy some time. It felt sort of like kicking a rubber ball.

Liza used that opening to strike the monster with the butt end of the spear;the tip wasn’t totally secure, so that seemed like the safest bet for now. Still, itdid a little bit of damage.

With that taken care of, I fired the Magic Gun a few more times to finish offthe creature.

Come to think of it, unlike back in the Valley of Dragons, the corpses of myfallen foes didn’t automatically disappear into my Storage. The spoils of war hadall shown up when I beat the final lizardman that time, so maybe I had to clearout all the enemies for that to happen or something.

“Liza, Tama, I’ll have you recover the core. Pochi, you come with me—there’sone more ahead.”

Tama handed a bunch of stones to Pochi for throwing. Tama…how manystones did you pick up, exactly?

The monster in the next room was the same kind as the one we’d just beaten.Lying on the floor were two corpses, a young woman and a boy who looked like aslave. Unlike with the camel cricket, these victims weren’t being eaten.

“Pochi, once we go in, throw rocks at the monster from its side. When you runout, get back to Liza and Tama.”

I breezily entered the room and started shooting. Just as I’d instructed, Pochifollowed and threw a couple of stones at the creature. Both of them hit theirtarget, but then the hornworm turned toward her and started to spit venom.

Pochi’s predicament struck me with a thrill of horror, but I moved quickly andmanaged to kick the side of the hornworm’s head, changing its trajectory. I’d putmore force behind the attack than I intended, though, because it crushed themonster’s head, and the thing stopped moving. The feeling on the sole of myfoot was kind of disgusting.

The venom didn’t hit Pochi, but it seemed to have scared her, because she ranoff into the passageway—but it was the wrong one. She must have mixed themup in her panic.

“Pochi, stop!”

I chased after her, delayed slightly by going around the dead hornworm.

“Wah! Stay away, stay away!”

Huh? Who was that? That wasn’t Pochi’s voice. Was it the man I’d seen on themap in the passageway?!

I checked the radar. He was way too close.

“Pochi, get back here!” I dashed up behind her and grabbed the back of herneck, lifting her. I thought I saw the back of a man running away down thecurved passage, but before I could chase him, his dot disappeared from theradar.

Why did he run in the first place? Did he think Pochi was a monster?

Or maybe he felt some kind of guilt toward the two victims in the otherroom…?

At any rate, this labyrinth seemed to be a more treacherous place than I’dthought. I’d have to be more careful about these kids’ safety.

“Young master! Are you all right?”

“Awriiight?”

Liza and Tama came running up to us.

“Yeah, we’re fine. Let’s go back to that last room and get the core.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” Pochi’s ears were flat as she apologized, and her tail hadretreated between her legs. I wasn’t upset about her blunder, but if shepanicked again, her life could be in danger, so I had to reprimand her a little.

“Pochi, if things get dangerous like they did back there, it’s all right to runaway. But you can’t lose your head, okay?”

“…Yes, sir.”

Pochi’s head lowered in gloomy contemplation, so I patted her lightly to cheerher up.

> Skill Acquired: “Animal Taming”

“Animal”? That was pretty rude. Couldn’t it be “Child Education” orsomething?

When we returned to the room, the sight of Liza and Tama disassembling thecorpse of the giant hornworm was pretty surreal.

I noted the names of the two victims, but I couldn’t decide whether I shouldcheck the bodies to see if they had anything useful. I couldn’t quite bring myselfto touch them, but as I stood hesitating, Liza took charge and told Pochi toinvestigate.

“Should I take off their clothes, too?”

“Just the shoes. Leave the rest.” I didn’t see why we’d need their clothes. ButI’d been bothered for some time that the beastfolk girls didn’t have shoes, so Ihad her recover those.

Pochi brought me the items she’d gathered. The slave boy didn’t haveanything, but she had found a change purse and some rings and necklaces andother jewelry on the girl’s body.

I made a folder in Storage for Belongings of the Deceased, then a subfolder forher name, where I stored the items. If there was a grieving family, I could returnthese to them. After a moment’s thought, I took a lock of their hair from eachand put it in with the other things.

I gave the shoes to Pochi and Tama to wear. Liza had the best constitution ofthe three, so I’d have to ask her to wait a little longer.

The shoes of the young man we’d seen before were probably lying around inthe room ahead with the giant snake, so I didn’t think she’d need to wait toolong.

My experiment with having the girls hit the monsters, however weak theattacks might be, seemed to have been a success. Liza and Tama had gained alevel each, and Pochi had gained two.

The girls seemed to acquire skills arbitrarily with their level, so Pochi now hadthe “Throwing” skill, Tama had the “Collecting” skill, and Liza got the“Disassembly” skill.

But there was something strange about Liza’s skills. “Javelin” was in white text,but “Disassembly” was in gray. Pochi’s and Tama’s were in gray, too. If thatmeant the same thing as it did in my own interface, they hadn’t been activatedyet. If the girls could enable them, their combat abilities would vastly improveright away, but I could only see this information; I couldn’t change around myparty members’ skills like in a single-player RPG.

There are still more than a hundred rooms left in this labyrinth… I’ll figurethings out as we go.

I motioned to the beastfolk girls, and we headed for the next room.

We proceeded through six more chambers, but we still hadn’t met any livinghumans. Only several more corpses.

“Master, we’ve finished retrieving the core.”

“Great. Let’s take a quick break.”

I took a gulp from the Well Bag and handed it to Liza.

At some point, she had shifted from calling me “young master” to just“master.” It seemed easier for her, so I didn’t bother to stop her.

As she started to open the Well Bag, it slipped from her hands and fell to theground, spilling out water into a puddle.

“I-I’m so, so sorry, master!!” Frantic, Liza scrambled to pick up the bag again.Her hands were shaking.

Come to think of it, Pochi’s and Tama’s throwing accuracy was pretty bad inthat last fight.

“Are you tired?”

“I’m so sorry! I spilled your precious water… I’ll accept whatever punishmentyou decide on.”

She was making a big deal of this—it looked like she really did believe she’dfailed horribly. Did I not mention that it produces infinite water? You’d thinkthey’d have noticed that by now, to be honest.

More important, I should check on how they’re doing.

“Don’t worry, Liza. We can get more water. Are you not feeling well?”

“I’m terribly sorry. My body has felt heavy for a while now… I can’t move aswell as I’d like.”

Tama and Pochi, too, had flopped down on the ground, apparently too unwellto even drink some water. I checked their statuses, but nothing was out of theordinary. Their stamina seemed low, though, so they must just be tired.

“Maybe instead of a short break, we should take a rest for a while.”

I gathered Pochi and Tama into my arms and took turns giving them water. Ididn’t have any more pastries, so I got some sliced jerky out of Storage instead,picking out whatever looked best from the preserved goods in my original loot. Itwas made from the meat of something called a “sky deer,” which I had neverheard of but was probably fine (judging by the “deer” part).

All three of them looked tired and defeated, but their hunger must have wonout, because when I held the meat under their noses, they opened their mouthsto chew as if by instinct.

“So, so yummy!”

“It’s delicious, sir!”

“Ah, jerky… The more I chew it, the more the flavor fills my mouth. Trulydivine.”

Uh, I don’t know if it’s that good.

“Jerky? It’s yummy!”

“Delicious, sir! Meat is the best, sir!”

Liza was still chewing away blissfully on her first piece. Just how much do youguys love meat?

I had dozens of pounds of jerky, so I handed out several pieces to each ofthem. “When you’re done eating, go ahead and sleep for three hours or so.”

Pochi and Tama happily curled up beside me and fell asleep at once, and Lizasat down to look after them. “I can keep watch,” she said, but her face said

otherwise—she was practically asleep already. After I insisted a second time, shefinally lay down to rest.

While the three dozed, I checked on their statuses.

About a half hour after we’d stopped, the gray skills changed to white.

Maybe the level-up had been applied now that they were resting? This was justlike that dungeon-crawler Older Scrolls. Was I going to start aging because Iwasn’t in a stable?

At any rate, why did these three gain skills when they leveled up? Was it notnormal, how I acquired skills as a result of my actions?

After the break, we proceeded through even more rooms. When we’d rested,the girls had been at the point of exhaustion after gaining about three levels, soit would probably be best to rest after another two areas.

“Stop!” Tama cried. It was unusual for her to shout so seriously.

But there aren’t any enemies in front of us…

“What’s wrong?”

“The floor is…weird?” she said uncertainly, almost like a question. Sosomething was off, but she wasn’t sure what? When I stopped and stared at thefloor, its texture did look strange.

Before I could figure it out with my own eyes, an AR pop-up offered theanswer. Trap: Life Drainer. This is a dungeon, so I guess it makes sense it’d berigged. We hadn’t encountered anything so far, so it hadn’t crossed my mind.

“Well done, Tama! It looks like there’s a trap there. Be careful.”

“’kay!”

I petted Tama’s head, scratching behind her cat ears. The latter part of mystatement was directed toward Pochi and Liza. I had the three of them standback and experimentally tossed a rock into the treacherous area, but nothinghappened. Judging by the name, it would probably take a living being to activateit.

Unfortunately, the AR didn’t show where the hazard began and ended, so I

didn’t know if edging along the side of the room would be safe. And I certainlywasn’t going to have one of the beastfolk test it out for me.

Checking the map, I didn’t see any detours around it, though. If we need a livecreature to activate it, maybe we can guide a monster there?

Luckily enough, there were a few rat demons in the next room not far away.Maybe if I chucked a rock down the hall, the noise would attract them? I got afew stones from Tama and threw three of them in rapid succession.

“Rats are heeere!” Tama reported. I had the three girls back up even farther.The monsters were weak, only level 10, but three or four of them had come atthe same time. It was possible some would get through, so we needed to keepour distance.

When they passed over the trap, the rats were ensnared in some kind of blackflame. It looked like all three had been caught separately. So at least three lifedrainers had been set on this path.

> Skill Acquired: “Trap Disarming”

> Skill Acquired: “Trap Setting”

> Skill Acquired: “Trap Detection”

These trap-related skills seemed helpful, so I added skill points and activatedthem right away.

Liza thrust her spear forward with all her might into the mouth of the giantfrog.

Pochi jumped out and whacked its side with a stick to distract it, and Tamaleaped in on the other side with her short sword, stabbing its enormous eye tofinish it off.

“You did it! Great job!”

“Thank you!”

“Yay!”

“Yes, sir!”

This was their first time defeating a monster all on their own, so I was pleased.The opponent had been a simple level 10 frog demon whose special attack heldits victim in place with its tongue, so I thought it might make a good trial forthem, but it was hardly a challenge at all. I guess beastfolk are stronger in a fightthan humans of the same level.

This room was about three times the size of the others we’d seen so far. You’dthink there would be more enemies in a place this big, but no red dots appearedon the radar.

At the end of the room was a house. More specifically, half a house that hadbeen cut neatly down the middle. It must have gotten pulled in when thelabyrinth was made. Unfortunately, my radar showed no sign of any humans.

Liza took apart the giant frog while Pochi and Tama kept watch at the door. SoLiza’s on disassembly duty this time? Since she had the skill for it, I kept thethree-girl-rotation lineup.

“Pochi, Tama, come with me. I’m going to investigate this house.”

According to the map, there weren’t any enemies nearby, so there should beno need to worry. Together with the two girls, I headed inside.

There was nobody living or dead in the building, but there were a lot of otheritems to be found. This seemed to have been a wealthy person’s secretstorehouse.

Once we entered, some lights automatically turned on. Some kind of magicaldevice? They looked easily detachable, so I tried taking one from the wall, but itfaded almost immediately. They must work only where they’d been installed.

The first thing that caught my eye was the pair of decorative short swordshanging on the wall. Checking the AR display, I was surprised to find that theyactually had decent attack power. They were a convenient size, too, so I decidedto give them to Tama and Pochi.

In a truly clichéd move, there was a safe behind one of the paintings, so I shotoff the lock with the Magic Gun and looked inside. There was a pouch of goldcoins, a few jewels, and a small bottle of a magic material labeled DRAGON SCALE

POWDER.

Was the owner an alchemist?

Sure enough, I found some magic potions for recovery in another room, so Imust have been right. I also found several books on magic and a magic scroll on abookshelf. I didn’t know how to use the scroll, but my guess was that one of thenearby books would explain it. I could read through them while the kids werenapping and figure it out.

We collected some small things like jewelry, but larger objects like artwork weleft in place. I could theoretically hold an infinite amount of items in Storage, butif I just grabbed everything in sight, it’d be a pain to sort through.

Among the artwork, there were two pedestals for mounting preservedanimals. Not that it matters, but are they out for repair or something? Iwould’ve liked to see some fantasy creatures up close.

> Skill Acquired: “Excavation”

> Skill Acquired: “Treasure Hunting”

> Skill Acquired: “Treasure Box Unlocking”

I found a Tinder Rod in the kitchen. That was the only Magic Item around, but Ialso picked up a frying pan, a small pot, and four sets of tableware, which I putinto the jute bag. There was a full water jug, too, so I poured some into anordinary water pouch from Storage in case we ran into other people.

A lot of small bottles were in the kitchen as well, so I filled a few with oil andput them in Storage in case I needed an impromptu Molotov cocktail.

“I smell jerky over here! Sir!” Pochi announced in a voice that sounded readyto break into song. On the other side of some crumbling furniture was a foodstock, and Pochi and Tama were practically scraping their faces trying to climbthrough.

It looked dangerous, so I had them stay back while I moved the obstructionaside one piece at a time to clear enough space for us to enter.

Inside, we found three big pieces of rye bread, plus cheese wheels and smokedmeat. There was a cask of some fine-looking wine, too, so I snuck it into Storagewhile meat distracted the other two.

“Pochi, Tama, want to do some taste testing?”

“Yeah!”

“Yes, sir!”

I checked on the AR to make sure none of it was spoiled, then gave Pochi andTama each a slice of cheese and meat.

“Yummy, yummy!”

“Awoo, it’s so tasty! I’m so happy, sir!”

Shaking their tails alone was apparently not enough to express their joy, so thegirls were waggling their clenched fists as well.

I tasted a piece of the cheese for myself. It was good, with a rich flavor likestrong cheddar.

“Let’s eat the rest with Liza, okay?”

“She’ll be so happy!”

“Good idea, sir! Let’s bring Liza some, sir!”

I gave the bag of weapons and small items to Pochi and the bag of food toTama, while I carried the water jug and a washbasin as we returned to thechamber where Liza was waiting. When we came outside, she had finishedretrieving the core and was just on her way toward the house.

“Master, I have a request…,” she murmured timidly. “Would it be all right if Istarted a fire?”

“A fire, underground? What for?” I asked.

“I thought it might be nice to grill the frog meat and eat it… Um. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize. Is it edible, though?”

“Yes, it’s perfectly safe. I dissected and ate a giant frog just like this one a longtime ago. There’s toxins in the intestines, but as long as you avoid those, it’s fine.But it has to be cooked, or there is a danger of poisoning…”

Liza trailed off after her halting explanation. Despite being underground, thereseemed to be good airflow, and we’d come a ways up now, so lack of oxygen

probably wouldn’t be a problem.

“Sure, go ahead.”

Liza asked Pochi and Tama to butcher the frog legs, then pulled a wood blockand some wood chips out of her bag, arranging them on the ground. So that’swhy she’s been collecting those as we go along.

Liza started to use flint to spark the fire, but I stopped her and instead usedthe Tinder Rod I’d found. I have no idea how this thing is made, but it’s reallyeasy to use.

I handed off to Liza the cooking supplies and tableware I’d found inside.

Before long, Pochi and Tama came over with the frog-leg meat carried highabove their heads.

“Meat!”

“It’s meat, sir!”

They seemed even happier about this than the smoked meat from earlier.Maybe this was their animal instinct at work?

Liza sliced the flesh into pieces and lined them up in the frying pan to cook.First she cooked up the fatty parts in oil and set those aside on a plate. Then shestarted to cook the best parts. An aroma like grilled chicken wafted into the air.Based solely on the smell, I’d say it might actually taste pretty good. Lookingimpatient, Pochi and Tama closed their eyes and sniffed deeply.

When the frog was cooked through, Liza stabbed each piece onto a woodenskewer and held out the first helping to me.

I probably have to eat this, huh? Yeah, I guess I do.

“Thank you, Liza.” Preparing myself for the worst, I took a bite—it tasted a bitlike chicken, but for the most part the flavor was pretty sparse. All I had forseasoning was salt, so there wasn’t much I could do about it. I didn’t feel likegoing into the house to look for other spices, either. I checked in Storage briefly,but I didn’t have pepper or anything.

The three of them watched intently as I ate. Oh, were they waiting forpermission?

“Don’t just sit there watching me—eat up! If you don’t eat and rest properly,we won’t make it out of the labyrinth!”

As soon as I granted them permission, Pochi and Tama dug into the grilledmeat straight from the frying pan. Liza, too, stopped cooking long enough topartake. Once in a while I heard a dreadful crunching noise, like one of them hadgotten a piece with some bone in it, but all three looked like they were enjoyingthe meal immensely.

Watching them out of the corner of my eye, I snuck bites of rye bread, cheese,and smoked meat. Even if it tasted all right, frog wasn’t really my thing.

After that, the cycle of dissecting the frog, cooking the meat, and eating itcontinued for about a half an hour; the feast came to an end around the timewhen the fire ran out of fuel. At Liza’s suggestion, we wrapped some of the meatin cloth to bring it with us.

Based on our journey so far, the girls would be getting worn out after anothertwo or three battles, so I decided they should rest now while they were full. Thiswas the third break so far.

Before they slept, I had them clean up in the washbasin I’d brought from thehouse and change into new clothes I’d found there. They’d probably get dirtyright away in the next battle, but it feels better to sleep in clean clothes, right?

Apparently, they were getting used to me, because Pochi and Tama fell asleepusing my lap as a pillow; Liza didn’t lean on me, but she did curl up right by myside.

Oh, while they’re sleeping, I should take a look at the magic books I got. WhenI searched through the ones in my Storage, a new option, “Inspect,” wasavailable for them, so I selected that. Just like in a game, it seemed like I couldread a book without actually taking it out of Storage.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t given it a thought until now, but I was able to seethe menu interface clearly even in dark places like this. Was it being projecteddirectly onto my retinas, or maybe composited in my head?

Wait, I wonder— Sure enough, I discovered that I was able to search thecontents of the open books, just like in a game. How convenient! No OCR

needed!

There were only a few lines about magic scrolls in one of the books, but it gavea sufficient explanation. It explained that you could use a magic scroll just byopening it and reading the name of the spell. The scroll I found contained a FireMagic spell called Fire Shot, an offensive spell that was apparently the first onenew Fire users learned.

Thanks to this discovery, I could now pass the time by reading while everyonewas asleep.

After another break, we’d made it almost 80 percent of the way to the exit ofthe labyrinth. Pochi and Tama were now using the ornamental short swordsfrom that storehouse and small shields. That was the only change to the party’sequipment, but all three of them had reached level 13. Pochi’s skills were “One-Handed Sword,” “Throwing,” “Enemy Detection,” and “Disassembly”; Tama’swere “One-Handed Sword,” “Throwing,” “Collecting,” and “Disassembly”; andLiza’s were “Spear,” “Spear Thrust,” “Cooking,” and “Disassembly.”

There was a world of difference in their combat ability from when we startedto now. In their current state, as long as an enemy didn’t have any specialattacks, the girls could beat one up to five levels higher than themselves byworking together. Since none of them was a shield user who could serve as atank, things got trickier if there were multiple higher-level monsters, but I wasstill impressed.

Farther down the passageway, we found a slime. It wasn’t the cute water-droplet kind from Japan’s favorite RPGs, though—more of a classic amoeba-likemucous creature.

This seemed as good a chance as any to try out my fire spell. I used the magicscroll for Fire Shot just as the book had directed. A fiery bullet only the size of myfingertip appeared, and it shot at the slime as slow as a ball tossed by a child.

Hitting its target, the little fireball toasted the surface of the slime only a littlebefore disappearing. I checked the slime’s HP gauge, and sure enough, it hadgone down only the tiniest bit. So Fire Shot was no use, not even against a level10 slime.

But I had gained the “Fire Magic” skill by using the spell, so I guess I could stillcall it a success.

When I checked my enabled magic, Fire Shot had appeared there, too. Butreally, from an MP-efficiency standpoint alone, the Magic Gun was way moreuseful, so there was no point in using my new ability. I guess it could be useful if Iwas ever without a fire-starting tool, though.

Perhaps misinterpreting my disappointment, Liza offered me some advice.“Master, forgive my insolence, but the best way to defeat a slime is to aim at itsnucleus.”

“Oh? Where is that?”

“The area where the coloring is slightly different.”

So that wasn’t the same as a core? Come to think of it, even though themonster was semitransparent, I couldn’t see a red orb anywhere. Do slimes nothave cores?

At any rate, when I looked where Liza was pointing, there was a small orbabout half the size of a fist that was a darker color than the rest of the body.

“If you just destroy the nucleus…”

As we’d been chatting, the slime had slowly been oozing closer, but Liza took itout with a single thrust of her spear.

“…you can defeat a slime easily,” she concluded.

“We didn’t get a turn!”

“It just melted away, sir!”

It seemed like Pochi and Tama had been raring to fight the slime, because theylooked a little disappointed. No, actually, Pochi seemed more upset that it hadturned into a puddle of liquid. She prodded at it glumly with her short sword.

Still, we hadn’t seen any human corpses since two breaks ago, never mindsurvivors. The larger groups were still going strong, but all the small partiesexcept for one were gone, probably eliminated by monsters.

“This wall is…weird?”

Tama had found a spot on the wall that looked out of place. It seemed to be ahidden door. When I consulted the map, it appeared there was indeed apassageway behind it.

But something was strange. I rotated the map to look at it from an overheadpoint of view. The path led from a room fifty feet above to a thousand-footvertical drop, about ten feet across. Is this some kind of pitfall trap?

If this was a game, this might be a good place for an elevator shortcut to andfrom the deepest part of the dungeon. It would be dangerous to just carelesslygo near it, so I had Tama make a mark on it with charcoal.

There was a crossroads ahead once we left the room, and in the front andcenter rooms, my map showed three survivors. They had been there about anhour ago when we took a break, too, so they must have been hiding in a safeplace.

They were only five rooms away from the exit, but without a map, I guess theyhad no way of knowing that.

“Everyone, stop!”

The red dot of an enemy had appeared on my radar and was coming toward usat an alarming speed. There was only one, so I figured we could go back to theprevious room and ambush it.

As we went back, I checked its information on the map. Undead Beast, anundead-type creature. Weakness: holy type. It had the skills “Quick Maneuvers”and “Sprinting.”

Continuing to read the information, I was a bit startled. “It’s…level forty?” Thatwas stronger than any of the demons we’d seen so far. Was it here to sweep outthe dungeon?!

This was just like an old game: an absurdly strong monster that appears if theplayer doesn’t clear the stage fast enough.

I hurried the three girls along, and we somehow made it into the room beforethe enemy arrived. I had the others take shelter in a corner. This guy would beway too much for them. If I let them fight it, they might get killed in a singleblow.

The creature ambled in from the passageway. It looked like a huge panther—fifteen feet long and almost seven feet tall—with a red horn on its forehead.

Suddenly, it disappeared from sight.

Frantic, I checked the radar, but its position hadn’t changed. There was a crashfrom above—was it leaping up to kick off from the ceiling and tackle me?!

I felt its paws hit my shoulders, and my back slammed into the ground so hardthat I felt the floor crack. Good thing I had turned on my “Pain Resistance” skillwhen we first wound up in the labyrinth.

Still, were undead monsters supposed to be that fast?! If it kept darting about,I might not be able to cover the girls. I grabbed on to its legs with both hands,digging my fingers in deep to stop it.

…Maybe it was one of my skills, but my eye was suddenly drawn to the hiddendoor in the room.

The undead monster seemed not to feel pain, because it ignored my crushinggrasp on its legs and started a biting attack. I’d rather not experience thesegiant-ass fangs, if at all possible.

I pushed it up and away from me, grabbed it by the middle, and threw itoverhead into the wall. The undead monster landed its feet against the side ofthe room and started to push off for a counterattack—only to break rightthrough and fall into the pit.

Good thing I had that “Trap Setting” skill.

Now then, maybe we should meet up with those survivors.

When we went through the crossroads, a tacky white string was lying acrossthe ground.

“Sticky, sticky!”

“It’s clinging to my feet, sir.”

“Maybe it’s a spider’s thread?”

The closer we got to the room, the thicker the spider thread became; I had

Pochi and Tama clear the way with their short swords.

In the room, we found seven cocoon-like objects. Looks like the survivors are inthree of these. We’d better get them out while the spider’s not here.

As we got closer, the people inside noticed and started wriggling frantically.

Just in case, I figured I’d check up on their information before we rescuedthem.

Nidoren. Forty-year-old slaver, level 11, with the skills “Negotiation,” “AnimalTaming,” and “Calculation.”

Viscount Jean Belton. Thirty-three-year-old noble, level 15, with the skills “FireMagic,” “Blaze Magic,” and “Sociability.” Apparently, he served as the sorceryadvisor for the count’s army.

The last person was a young man without a job. He was level 3, without anyskills. What’s this guy, a NEET?

The viscount looked like he could be useful in combat, but what had he beendoing in the square in the first place?

At any rate, we divided up the work and set about freeing the men. I was incharge of the viscount, Liza was taking care of the merchant, and I assignedPochi and Tama to the young man.

As we were about halfway through cutting the thick cocoons, I saw on myradar a spider approaching from below. There must have been a similar pit inhere to the one I’d cast the undead beast into.

“There’s an enemy on the way! Pochi, Tama, Liza, stop for a moment and getready to intercept it!”

The beastfolk quickly readied their weapons and stood prepared to take on thespider. After the many battles they’d fought along the way, they seemed prettyused to cooperating.

It was a small mercy that we hadn’t yet freed the faces of the trappedsurvivors. We didn’t need them yammering away while we were trying to fight.

The spider crawled out from a hole in the floor. First, I tossed a stone at itshead so it would focus on me. Next, Liza skewered its head with her spear to

stop it from moving, and Pochi and Tama stabbed its abdomen with their shortswords.

It would’ve been nice if this first round of attacks was enough to kill it, but Iguess it’s no surprise that a demonic monster wouldn’t die instantly from a stabto the face.

It reared up its front legs, but Liza stopped them in place with her spear heldhorizontally, and Pochi and Tama used that gap to go at it with their shortswords, chipping away at its HP.

It seemed like this would take a while, so I stealthily flicked a small coin rightthrough its heart, finishing off the creature. I timed my strike with one of Liza’sattacks, so hopefully nobody would notice.

Leaving Tama to retrieve the core, the rest of us went back to our rescuemission. The viscount and I exchanged introductions as I finished rescuing him.

“Thank you for saving me. I am Viscount Jean Belton, the head of theprestigious Belton family, which has continued since the days of the ancestralking Yamato. If we make it out of here, you may expect to be handsomelyrewarded.”

“Thank you, Viscount. I’m Satou, a peddler.”

I handed the viscount a water pouch and went to help save the others.

“Thank you so much for your help. I am Nidoren the merchant. This may upsetthe young ladies here, but I trade in slaves.”

“I’m a novice peddler, Satou.”

“A peddler, eh? I would have sworn you to be an adventurer.”

“An adventurer?” I asked, handing Nidoren some water. “I’ve never heard ofan occupation like that before. What sort of people are they?”

“Ah…perhaps in the Shiga Kingdom they’d be called ‘explorers.’ They fightmonsters in dungeons, collecting monster cores and treasures. It’s a profitabletrade, but only if you don’t mind being at death’s door at any given moment.”

I see… So there are gamelike occupations in this world, too, huh?

“Tch! Don’t touch me, beastchild! Give me the short sword, and I’ll do itmyself!”

“I—I can’t do that, sir. This sword belongs to my master, sir.”

“What’s that?! You’ve got a lot of nerve for a beastfolk brat!”

Pochi seemed to be having trouble with the young man she was trying to save,so I went over to help her.

This guy seems like an ass, though. That blond hair looks kind of familiar… Oh,it’s the same guy who kicked the firewood out of Pochi’s arms back in the eastquarter!

“Pochi, come back over here.”

“Yes, sir.”

She rushed over, her eyes starting to fill with tears from being yelled at; Icaught her in my arms and patted her head reassuringly. The way she wasrubbing her face into my stomach tickled a bit, but I wasn’t going to stop her inher current state.

“Oi, you, hurry up and help me!”

“Sorry, but I’m not really feeling it anymore. You can just stay and get eaten bya monster or whatever. One of your hands is free now, so you should be able toget out on your own, right?”

Of course, I wasn’t serious. It was just a little threat.

But since he made Pochi cry, I figured the least I could do was let him fear forhis life a little.

“Hey, that’s not funny! Get me out of here now!”

“Silence, peasant,” the viscount thundered at the young man recklesslyflapping his jaw. “If you make another sound and risk attracting more monsters,I’ll burn you to cinders, down to your very bones, with my flames.”

That’s a lot of intensity for a fairly young guy. People who are used to beingwaited on hand and foot sure are different.

In the end, we left to Nidoren the job of rescuing the third man. He skillfully

used a slim dagger to cut through the thread. As he worked, he whisperedsomething in the young man’s ear, and the rescue immediately stopped hisgrumbling.

An old man’s words to the wise, maybe?

Watching with admiration, I paused to accept the core from Tama.

“The cores here are of a very high grade. It’s not often you see one so red onthe market.”

According to Nidoren, these could be purified for use in the creation of MagicItems; the higher the grade, the more effective the result, making it possible tocreate high-quality magical tools.

I had the beastfolk girls recover the articles of the deceased in the rest of thecocoons while I offered the survivors some food. (Not the frog meat, of course.)The viscount made some complaints about the humble quality, but his hungerwon out in the end, and he gobbled up his fill.

Some light armor was in a few of the cocoons, so I handed it off to Nidorenand the viscount. The young man had gotten meeker since being admonished bythe older merchant, so I gave him some equipment for self-defense, just in case.I’ll just think of it as increasing our party’s combat ability.

In the end, that plan may have been a bit naive.

“I have no desire to use my magic on such minor foes as these. My abilities aresuited for only the most formidable opponents.”

“I’ll take care of myself somehow, but don’t count on me to help out incombat, please.”

The viscount wouldn’t use his magic because of some excuse or another, andNidoren blithely declared himself unfit for combat, so both conveniently avoidedhelping in battle.

Nidoren’s one thing, but I had high hopes for the viscount’s magic.

But more frustrating than either of those two was the young man. Apparently,being given the bronze short sword and shield had gone to his head…

“Hmph! If those beastfolk brats can fight, then I can take on a hundredfold

more than them combined! If I’d had a weapon back there, that stupid spiderwouldn’t have slowed me down a bit!” he declared, rushing to attack a monster—only to be nearly defeated in a single hit.

His opponent was a single level 10 skeleton, so before it could finish him off,Pochi rushed in and saved him, catching the blow from its club with her smallshield.

“Liza, if you would.”

“Of course.”

At my simple order, Liza hefted her spear. She broke through the skeleton’sform with her first strike, knocked off the arm holding its weapon with thesecond, and destroyed its skull with her third.

Despite the fact that it lacked eyeballs in the first place, it seemed the skeletoncould no longer see after losing its skull, and it launched an attack completely atrandom. Pochi and Tama sprang into action, and the two girls dispatched theiropponent with ease.

Still, having seen a skeleton-type monster in person for the first time, I had towonder: How on earth do they move? Is the core the source of their power,maybe?

Once again, I had to ask Nidoren to take care of the young man, who was lyingon the ground moaning.

“Are you all right there?”

“Tch… I didn’t expect a skeleton to be so strong.”

“It looks like you might have a broken rib here…”

Ignoring the young man’s curses, I listened to the slave merchant’s diagnosis.If his rib is broken, we shouldn’t move him… What are we supposed to do?

“Nngh…! Am I gonna die here?”

“If Pochi hadn’t saved you, I’m pretty sure you’d have died the instant thatclub hit your skull.”

This would’ve been the perfect chance for him to apologize to Pochi after

she’d saved his life, but he didn’t utter a word of thanks. Well, I’m not interestedin hearing his complaints, then.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it! I gotta live! I’m not gonna die in a place like this!”the young man spat bitterly, as blood trickled from his lips.

“Hmph. If he can’t walk on his own, we should leave him behind. Meeting upwith the troops who have been sent to help us is more important right now.Know that your own foolhardiness has been the death of you, peasant. Youshould accept the consequences of your actions.”

Whoa, that’s cold. Unlike me, he sounds completely serious.

Pochi and Tama were looking up at me with eyes that begged me to dosomething for the man, so I had no choice but to break out one of my lastresorts.

“Use this medicine, then.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a magic potion.”

“Magic potion?!”

He seemed pretty shocked by that phrase, but it was just something I’d foundin the alchemist’s house, so I had no idea how effective it would actually be.

Be grateful that Pochi and Tama are so kind, pal. If they hadn’t pressed me todo something, I doubt I would’ve given you this.

Nervously, the young man brought the potion to his lips. The effect wasstartlingly immediate.

Just moments ago, he’d been groaning in pain, but less than a secondafterward, he shouted, “I’m healed!” and leaped to his feet. It was just as quickas it would have been in a game. I found it a tiny bit disturbing, to be honest.

“A single intermediate-level potion is worth three gold coins, you know. Youmust be a very odd fellow to let a stranger drink a thing like that.”

When the slave merchant quoted a number that was a bit higher than myestimated market price, the color drained right back out of the young man’s

face.

I wasn’t particularly planning to demand a fee from him, but I didn’t go out ofmy way to tell him not to worry, either.

Thanks to my “Keen Hearing” skill, the sound of a commotion ahead of usreached my ears before anyone else’s.

Zena and her group of soldiers were battling slimes. But had they reallycharged into a room chock-full of monsters without trying to clear it out first?That seemed way too careless.

“Fightiiing!”

“I hear battle sounds coming from over there, sir!”

Pochi and Tama must have heard it, too, because they pointed in thatdirection as they made their report.

I nodded and told the other survivors that we would go on ahead.

“It seems someone’s engaged in combat a little farther up. We’ll go in first, soplease follow behind and watch our backs.”

The viscount looked like he was about to say something, but I ran off withoutstopping to listen.

Zena didn’t seem to be injured, but she was low on MP, so I was worried abouther.

A few men clad in tunics tumbled out of the room Zena and the other soldierswere in.

“Wah! Stay away from me!”

“It burns…so hot… I don’t wanna die!”

The last man seemed to be pressed into the ground, apparently being suckedin by a slime. He desperately stretched out his hand, begging for help, but hiscompatriots were too terrified to do anything but shrink away.

“Pochi, Tama, grab some torches from the bag.”

“’kay!”

“Yes, sir!”

I lit the ends of their torches with the Tinder Rod, taking one for myself as well.

“Use these to drive back the slimes and pull them off that man. Liza, take themout by aiming at their nuclei. Once you beat them, leave the cleanup for laterand follow me.”

The three of them confirmed their orders, and we rushed into the room. I wasa little worried about leaving the younger girls on their own, but since Liza waswith them and knew how to defeat these monsters, it should be an easy victoryfor them. They had the torches, too.

Focusing on Zena’s marker on my radar, I pushed past the people and slimeslocked in a free-for-all.

There she is! Zena was fighting off slimes with a long staff, protecting a groupof priestesses who were in turn protecting the Oracle. The fact that she wasusing her staff must mean she’d finally run out of magic.

I thought I might try to snipe the nuclei with coins from a distance, but I didn’thave a good angle. If I messed up, I’d hit the Oracle instead.

One of the monsters attempted to suck in Zena’s staff, pulling her down.

She let out a cry of anguish.

I’m coming!

I unfastened my cloak as I ran, tossed it over the slime that was covering themagic soldier, and used it to pull her attacker off.

With the sound of cloth ripping and a short cry from Zena, I managed to tossthe slime behind me. Holding it off with fire, I pulled out a rarely used knife andthrew it at the creature’s nucleus, destroying it.

“Are you all right?”

I turned to Zena to make sure she was safe—but my voice cut off in a squeakof surprise.

The indecent slime had torn a huge hole in her blouse. On top of that, it had

even melted through part of her chest wrapping, making it come undone.

In short, well…there was nothing left to hide her modest femininity.

Having narrowly escaped a brush with death, Zena herself didn’t seem to havenoticed this yet.

It would be wrong to stare, so I reached into Storage via my bag and pulled outa clean piece of cloth, tossing it over to cover her front.

“Oh—thank you! …Satou?!”

Covering her chest with the fabric, Zena finally noticed my presence; with a cryof surprise, she leaped up to embrace me.

Uh, you’re gonna drop the all-important cloth I just gave you!

“Satou! I’m so glad you’re all right!”

I wasn’t sure if our relationship was really close enough to warrant all that, butI wasn’t going to complain about a cute girl hugging me. Besides, I was happy tobe reunited, too.

And it was all well and good for me to enjoy her soft embrace until she came toher senses, but I did think the agonizing screams of battle all around usdampened the mood a little bit.

The Oracle priestess whom Zena had been protecting approached from behindher. Huh? Come to think of it, what was the Parion Oracle doing in a place likethis? I knew they’d been on their way to a house call in the west quarter, somaybe they’d gotten caught up in the labyrinth business on their way back?

“Zena, please save your excitement about your reunion for later. For now,finishing off these monsters takes priority.”

“Ah, s-sorry about that! Gosh, what am I doing?”

“Don’t worry. I’m happy that you were so pleased to see me.”

The Oracle pointed at the piece of cloth that was now at a priestess’s feet, andthe priestess collected it and handed it to Zena. Flustered, she hurriedly tied itaround the front of her blouse; I watched her fondly for a second before turningto the Oracle.

“From your performance a moment ago, it would seem that you know theweak point of these creatures, do you not?”

“Yes, that’s right. Slimes all have nuclei, so if you strike that, you can defeatthem easily.”

“Leave it to you, Satou! You’re not just nimble—you’re also veryknowledgeable, too!”

“Not at all. I just learned that from Liza.”

“Liza? I-is that a woman?”

On hearing the unfamiliar name, Zena pressed closer to me. Right. I guess Inamed her while we were in the dungeon, so Zena wouldn’t know her name.

“Save your infidelity interrogation for later, please. Is there a way to tell bysight where the slime’s nucleus is?”

Excuse you, Oracle. “Infidelity”? Thanks for making me look bad with agroundless accusation. Well, I can clear up this misunderstanding later.

“There is. The nucleus is a slightly different color, and if you approach it withfire, the slime will recoil and try to keep it away from you—so if you know whatto look for, it’s easy to find.”

“Zena, can you use Whisper Wind?”

“I’m sorry; I used up all my magic, so I won’t be able to for a while…”

If only I could transfer some of my unnecessarily plentiful MP to her. Still, I hadto wonder if the rate or method of recovery varied from person to person; theseyoung ladies’ magic showed no signs of replenishing.

Whoops, better save my analysis for later. I wonder if I’d gain some sort ofuseful communication skill by shouting?

I sucked in air deeply, filling my lungs, and shouted as loudly as I could. “Aimfor the slimes’ nuclei!”

> Skill Acquired: “Amplification”

Due to the nature of my line of work, I wasn’t really used to shouting, and myvoice cracked…but I managed to get the skill anyway. I put some points into it,then repeated my cry, adding on a supplementary explanation.

It was a short clarification but seemed to have effectively reached the soldiers,because they started to eliminate the slimes with pinpoint accuracy. This wasprobably thanks to their expertise as soldiers, but it might also have somethingto do with my “Direction” skill.

A nearby slime started creeping up on us from its hiding place, but Liza and thegirls caught up just in time to take it out.

The soldiers seemed to be fine, but there were a few groups of civilians whowere being driven back to the wall, so I brought the girls with me to come totheir aid. Before we parted, I handed the priestesses a lit torch. There weren’tany monsters around them, but just to be safe.

In a foolproof winning strategy, Pochi and Tama were driving back the slimeswith torchlight while Liza stabbed the nuclei, steadily whittling down the enemynumbers.

My role was just to call out to the people who were alarmed by the suddenappearance of the beastfolk and get them to calm down.

Man, I wish things were always this easy.

When most of the slimes had been taken care of, I headed back toward Zenaand the others.

At some point, Nidoren, Viscount Belton, and the other man had arrived in theroom as well. They, too, found some friends and rejoiced at their reunion.

“Sir Satou, we truly appreciate your help.”

“It’s all right. I’m just glad I made it in time.”

When I got back to Zena’s group, the priestesses thanked me as well.

Zena and the Oracle were sitting on the ground with their eyes closed. Are theymeditating or something? My guess was that this was an easy stance fromwhich to regain MP. They seemed to be recovering it much faster than before.

Keeping an eye on the two as they meditated peacefully, I looked around atthe rest of the room.

Of the fifty or so soldiers who’d been trapped in the labyrinth, about 70percent were here. It seemed that seven of them had been killed, and five werewith another group in the demon’s maze.

Aside from the soldiers, about twenty civilians were here, too, including theones we’d seen fleeing the room before.

One of the other priestesses was gathering the wounded near the Oracle. Itseemed like she was going to use some kind of AOE healing spell, so we movedback to give her space.

With most of her magic recovered, the priestess chanted a really longincantation.

The chant took a good two or three minutes; looking bored, Pochi and Tama

yawned and stretched. Or maybe they’re just tired?

“… Area Heal Han’i Kaifuku!”

When the spell was complete, a cone of soft light shone down on the priestessand spread out to encompass the people around her. Where’s that comingfrom? Curious, I reached out to touch the light.

> Skill Acquired: “Holy Magic: Parion Faith”

Whoa, I gained the skill just by touching it. Once again, this seems a little tooeasy…

It looked like this magic had healed most of the injured.

The Oracle priestess seemed to have used up most of her MP with this spell, soher companion priestesses went about casting additional healing spells on thosewho needed them.

Having finished her meditation, Zena ran her fingers through her hair as shespoke to me.

“I really am glad you’re all right, though.”

“Well, these girls were a big help there.” I reintroduced the beastfolk to therelieved Zena.

“Ah, the demi-human children from back in the plaza.”

“My name…is Pochi.”

“Tamaaa.”

“I am called Liza.”

Shyly, Pochi and Tama introduced themselves as briefly as possible and hidbehind my legs. Only Liza seemed to remember that Zena had defended thembefore.

“We’re immensely grateful that you protected us from those stones on thesurface. Without your sorcery, I doubt these children and I would have survivedfor long. Thank you very much.” Liza bowed deeply as she thanked Zena.

Apparently remembering Liza’s words, Pochi and Tama emerged from behindme and bowed.

“Thanks!”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Zena giggled. “You’re welcome.”

Amusingly, the girls immediately used me as a shield again once they’dthanked her.

“Oh, that’s right, Satou! The exit might not be far from this room!”

“Really? Did you find that out with magic?”

“Yes, I have a spell called Path Finder that can get information from the flow ofthe air!” Zena told me in a whisper. “But you see, since it’s based on the air, it’shard to say whether it came from a path that’s accessible to people. There’s ascout investigating right now, so we’ll have to wait a little longer.”

“Sure. Then let’s hope for good news.”

Apparently, right after that scout had left, the slimes had dropped from theceiling, and that’s how the whole situation had started.

While we waited, I observed the room around us. The civilians had gathered ina corner to rest.

The viscount seemed to be discussing something with what looked like thearmy unit’s captain. Maybe next time you can actually do something useful withyour “Blaze Magic.”

It seemed that past this room was a long passageway that led to the exit, butthere was a small problem.

Like the setup of some messed-up dungeon master, there was a SkeletonRoom partway through in an unavoidable location.

The soldiers and the viscount’s magic could probably dispatch the thirty-oddskeletons between levels 10 and 15, but there were three more formidableenemies: a level 30 skeleton knight, skeleton warrior, and skeleton death scythe.

The death scythe, in particular, seemed to have an insta-kill attack that wecouldn’t afford to ignore. If we had a Turn Undead–type move that purified evilcreatures, like in a game, then we could beat this easily.

Strategically, then, the best move was probably to wait for the Oracle and thepriestesses to recover their magic.

The scout who’d been sent ahead to investigate the path soon returned andreported to the captain the same information I’d just investigated. The captaingathered his best staff, the priestesses, and the viscount to come up with astrategy.

Pochi and Tama seemed tired of all the waiting and were starting to doze off,so I let them take a quick nap in my lap. Liza, too, rested up for a while by myside.

Then, after the captain’s explanation, the battle began. We were left out of theproceedings.

The group’s strategy was to shave down the skeletons’ HP with the viscount’smagic, use Zena’s magic to break apart the enemies, then lure them one by oneback to the room we were in to finish them off.

It seemed that they were using the narrow hallway to create a one-versus-many situation in their favor. Three of the priestesses supported the soldiersfrom behind, using a Turn Undead spell.

The civilians had been moved to a smaller room, with those capable of battle—like hunters and merchants’ guards—patrolling the hallway to protect the roomfrom monsters.

We’d been evacuated here, too, but now we were getting ready to leave.

This was thanks to a group of men who seemed to be friends with the onewe’d rescued before, who were upsetting the beastfolk with their jeers andcomplaints.

Nidoren the slave trader and his friends rebuked the group for us, but if I hadto be stuck in a hostile environment, I might as well be near the battlefield.

Maybe because they’d saved his life, the young man himself wasn’t sayinganything bad about the girls. He was halfheartedly trying to change the subject,but it wasn’t doing much good.

I thanked Nidoren and his friends, and we left to stand near the entrance to

the battlefield.

From here, I had a good view of the scene inside the large room.

The path to the Skeleton Room up ahead must have been a straight one,because I could see the faint red glow of fire sweeping the area.

“Here they come! Spears at the ready!”

At the squad leader’s orders, the group of soldiers got into formation, loweringtheir spears.

Next, Zena and the viscount, who’d been sent ahead to get a head start withtheir magic, came leaping back into the room, followed shortly by a knight inlightweight armor. Directly behind him was a huge group of skeleton soldiers.

Two heavily armored knights formed a barrier in front of the passageway,halting the skeletons’ advance.

“Spearmen! Don’t stab—swing at them!”

At the squad leader’s orders, a countless number of spears descended on theskeletons, steadily depleting their HP.

Then the priestesses shot their purifying spells into the mix, finishing them off.Their resistance to the magic must have been reduced when they were low onhealth.

“Two of the big ones are coming! Captain Kigouri, we’re counting on you!”

“Aye! Bouza, can you take one of ’em?”

“Leave it to me, Captain! I’m on fire!”

The broadsword-wielding captain, who was the highest level of the lot, and aheavy soldier with a huge battle-ax and the second-highest level, wereapparently in charge of the skeleton knight and the skeleton warrior.

The two large monsters broke through the front lines, and the two men tookcontrol, locking in battle with them a little ways away. They exchanged furiousblows: the captain’s broadsword against the skeleton knight’s shield, and thehotheaded soldier’s battle-ax against the skeleton warrior’s club.

“… Bind Air Fuubaku!”

To support the heavy soldier, who seemed to be at a slight disadvantage, Zenacast a spell to limit his foe’s movements.

The viscount was standing with his arms crossed and looking decidedly self-important, but it didn’t seem like he was going to do anything.

“… Turn Undead Jouka!”

The Oracle’s purifying magic shot into action. The weaker skeletons collapsedinto a pile of bones, but the larger ones resisted it. Still, it seemed to have madethem flinch, so the tide of battle was starting to turn.

“Tch! Be careful of the black one! Its scythe can cut through shields!”

There was a torrent of noise and a spray of blood from the front lines.

The skeleton death scythe was the same height as the small-fry, but its boneswere pure black. Its scythe was just like the kind that Death itself carries inimages—not built for combat, but it could break through shields and cutthrough armor like paper.

The knights who made up the front lines were more than ten levels lower thanthe death scythe. If things went on like this, it seemed like the vanguard wouldcrumble.

I took a small penny out of my pocket, fiddling with it in my hand.

I waited for the moment the death scythe swung its weapon and the spearmenmoved away, then pitched the coin at the monster. My target was the skeleton’sankle joint. Between my “Throwing” skill and my “Sniping” skill, I landed a directhit on the tiny target from a full sixty feet away.

Since I’d timed it along with the skeleton’s attack, the momentum of its swingbrought the monster crashing to the ground. To the soldiers fighting it, it shouldjust look like it had swung too hard and fallen.

Not letting the chance go to waste, the soldiers and knights brought down abarrage of maces and the butt ends of spears, destroying the arm that held theblade.

Without letting a second go to waste, the Oracle came in with her purifyingmagic, reducing the black death scythe to a pile of white bone fragments.

From there, although it was a close game, the army was able to dispatch therest of the skeletons without a single loss of human life.

Along with the people who’d been taking shelter, we proceeded to theSkeleton Room.

This room was even bigger than the one we’d been in before. It was about asbig as two gymnasiums put together. The whole area was made up of bare rock,the natural ups and downs of which made it difficult to walk on the floor.

It was too dark to see the ceiling, but it seemed to be about fifty feet up.

On the way back to the surface, a heavy metal door blocked the passage. Itwas locked, and nobody seemed to be able to open it.

The knights tried to destroy it with their clubs and maces, but all thisaccomplished was a lot of loud, fruitless noise. Pochi and Tama covered theirears, cowering unhappily.

The clamor carried on for a while, but finally they seemed to give up andaccept that they’d have to rely on magic.

“Viscount Belton, Zena, can either of you destroy it?”

“My Blaze Magic could easily make short work of it, but I would prefer to leavethis to the hands of the youth.”

“M-my magic?”

Zena’s Air Hammer only kicked up the dirt around the door, not budging theheavy metal an inch. Air doesn’t weigh anything, so it’s probably not tooeffective against solid objects.

I’ll have to comfort her later.

Next, the viscount tried his Flame Tongue spell, but all it did was scorch thesurface.

Oblivious to the growing gloom of the party, Tama tugged on my sleeve withher latest report. “Master, that wall is…weird!”

Looking in the direction she pointed in, there was indeed a section of the wallthat seemed out of place.

Checking my map, I saw that it was a hidden door. This seemed to be the topof the shaft where I’d thrown the undead beast near the spider’s lair.

“Good eye, Tama.”

I petted her head and scratched her cat ears. Of course, Pochi looked left out,so I patted her with my other hand. And tousled her dog ears, of course.

While I was preoccupied with this task, a new enemy signal appeared on myradar. But what I heard from the soldiers and merchants investigating near itwere cheers of joy, not screams.

What’s going on? Puzzled, I looked in that direction while checking themonster’s real form on my map at the same time.

“Hey, there’s a treasure chest here!”

“Ooh! I’ve heard of them appearing in dungeons sometimes!”

“It’s mine! I found it first!”

Just then, the man’s obnoxious claim turned into a scream.

“Oh-ho-ho-ho…to think that so many of you made it here! I, impressed!”

Before us was the eyeball demon who had pulled us into the labyrinth. Ithought he wasn’t here, but he’s just been disguising himself?!

“Everyone, get into position! We’re going to form a three-pronged attack, nota circle! This thing can use magic—Viscount, Zena, we’ll need you on defense!”

The captain sprang into action, ordering the troops into formation. Zena castWind Protection and Air Cushion in rapid succession. The Oracle and herpriestesses must have used up their magic, because they quickly took shelter in acorner.

“I knew you’d show up, demon! Unfortunately for you, there’s no defenseagainst my Blaze Magic. I’m going to use Blast Pole. Buy me some time!”

Oh-ho, I thought this guy was just stingy with his magic, but I guess he wassaving it for a demon encounter. I apologized to the viscount in my mind,reconsidering my opinion of him a little.

The demon howled, and black spheres appeared all around him. They circled

him, repelling any knights who tried to get near him.

“Human magic is too slow. I, bored!”

His giant eye blinked for a moment.

Hmm? What was that? Something felt strange for a moment there.

> Skill Acquired: “Evil-Eye Resistance”

I glanced at my log and noticed I’d gotten a new skill. Looking around, I sawthat the people who had been directly in front of the eye now had the statusCharmed.

Even the beastfolk girls had apparently been unable to resist.

“Master! This is incredible, sir! So much meat, sir!”

“I’m gonna eat the meat!”

“Pochi, Tama! We have to hunt as much as we can for the master’s sake!”

They must have been hallucinating that the soldiers around them were roastchicken and beef or something.

I felt bad when they looked so happy, but I had to quickly knock them out withthe side of my hand and carry them to a corner of the room. This spot was in theshadow of a large rock, so they should be safe even if the demon cast a big area-effect spell.

The Charmed soldiers were attacking their comrades, but they wereoutnumbered enough for it not to turn into a massive bloodbath.

At present, the captain and the battle-crazed heavy soldier from before werelocked in direct combat with the eyeball monster. The black spheres caught thestrikes from their broadsword and battle-ax, though, so they weren’t able toreach the monster himself.

Zena was a little ways away using support magic, but she didn’t seem to havemuch MP left.

“Stupid humans, kill each other! I, happy!” The demon sneered, apparentlyenjoying the mayhem. His words ended with another howl, and his body gloweda dark red.

At last, Viscount Belton finished his chant, and a pillar of flame erupted frombelow the demon’s feet.

“Foul demon! We humans won’t allow your kind to trample on us forever!”

But as if to mock the viscount’s cheesy line as he brandished his staff, theeyeball fluttered about coolly in the middle of the fire. An AR pop-up read, Firedamage cut by 75 percent; he must have used a defense spell right before theattack.

Like the demon himself had said, the chant was so lengthy that it was probablyeasy to defend against it in time. How sneaky.

“Hot! HOT! It’s nice and hot! I, cozy!”

“What the?! Intermediate magic doesn’t work on him?!”

“Doesn’t work? Of course it worked. I, kind.”

Sure enough, the demon’s health bar had decreased, but by only a smallfraction.

“Ah, your despair feels so good! I, thrilled!”

At this rate, it was only a matter of time before someone got killed.

Zena said low-grade demons are as strong as a wyvern, but this guy isdefinitely tougher than that.

I’m going to have to fight, even if it means I’ll stand out.

Showing off my superhuman powers might end in all of Seiryuu City chasingafter me, but I can’t just stand by and let Zena die.

Just as I had made that decision, however, screams came from the other room,as if to dampen my resolve.

Turning toward the passageway, I saw Nidoren and the others running towardus with a bloodied undead beast at their heels.

Crap! I had been so occupied with what was in front of me that I’d forgotten tokeep an eye on my radar. Kicking myself, I picked up a rock from the ground infront of me and threw it at the monster’s face.

The only reason I didn’t finish it off in one blow was so that I could use it.

The undead beast turned its empty eye sockets toward me and ignored themiddle-aged man it had been about to crush in favor of coming toward me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Zena’s shocked expression. “Satou?!”

I caught the undead beast’s charge with both hands, and its momentum sentboth of us flying into the wall with the hidden passage behind it. The fragile wallcrumbled, and the beast and I were both swallowed up in the darkness.

“Zena! Stay in position!”

“No, let me go! Satou, Satooou!”

The sound of Zena shrieking my name faded as I dropped into the abyss.

Sorry, Zena. You can scold me for this later.

I had fallen into the pit behind the secret door. It would have been a huge painto get back to the battlefield from a thousand feet down, so I had grabbed aledge about fifteen feet down and pulled myself into a small room.

Normally, this kind of acrobatic movement would have resulted in nothing butsome broken fingers, but my leveled-up body could do some ridiculous things.

The undead monster had ended up in the room with me, so I finally had achance to bring out one of my Holy Swords again.

It didn’t glow blue, but it was still insanely sharp, enough to cut the monster inhalf without the slightest resistance. The sword caused me a minute amount ofdamage as long as I had it out, so I put it back in its scabbard.

All right. I can disguise myself while I’m in this room.

I changed out of my robe into some shabbier clothes, with a richly coloredovercoat on top. The hood could probably cover my face, but it still made me alittle nervous.

Looking through my Storage, I found something pretty convenient: the dragonmask I’d bought with Martha. She’d said this silver mask was quite popular lastyear, which meant they wouldn’t be able to track it down to one owner. I put onthe blond wig I’d bought then, too.

Great. I’m all set.

I ran like the wind down the passageway, heading back to the battlefield.

In the room before the Skeleton Room, there was a bunch of weak monsters—maybe summoned by the demon—pressing down on the hunters and guardswho desperately fought to protect the entrance to the smaller room where theothers were hidden.

I made sure there was no one in the passageway, then took a boulder out ofStorage and rolled it along. The overwhelming mass crushed the monsters.

> Title Acquired: Merciless One

I made sure the attack had taken out all the enemies, then bounded past thestunned hunters and guards and headed toward the Skeleton Room.

The battle against the demon continued unabated.

In the few minutes I’d been gone, several soldiers had taken serious injuries,but Zena appeared to be unharmed. The beastfolk girls were still passed out inthe corner, but they were fine as well.

Thanks to what was probably the viscount’s magic, a circle of flames aroundthe eyeball made close combat impossible. I tossed another rock from Storage atthe center of the demon’s huge eye.

“Guh? What was that? I, surprised!”

“Quit screwing around! We don’t need help from a masked weirdo like you!”

Oh dear, I’ve been rejected?

Wearing the silver festival mask to hide my identity had apparently backfired.

The demon howled, and a transparent black screen appeared in front of him.

I lightly tossed a rock at it, but right in front of the screen, it suddenly lost allmomentum and dropped harmlessly to the floor. It must have been a magicdefense against projectiles.

“Who are you? Thinking you could harm a demon with a mere rock? I, soperplexed!”

His next cry created a black javelin. Is howling like that the demon equivalentof a chant?

The missile flew toward me, but I dodged it easily. It was moving at a prettyhigh speed, but maybe my “Evasion” skill helped me with the timing.

While I had the demon distracted, the viscount’s Flame Spear and thepriestess’s Sacred Javelin spells hit the demon squarely in the temple, reducinghis HP by a large margin. At the same time, the captain’s broadsword and theheavy soldier’s battle-ax crashed into him from the other side.

The ax didn’t do any damage, but the sword must have been a magic weaponof some kind, because it took out another chunk of the demon’s HP.

“Aargh, am I going to be defeated by humans? HUMANS? I, embarrassed!”

A magic circle appeared at the demon’s feet.

“He’s going to cast something! Everyone, defensive positions!”

At the captain’s warning, the soldiers took cover behind nearby rocks.

In a game, this would be the time to attack the demon head-on with all mymight to try to finish it, but in reality, I guess damage control was moreimportant. Charging the demon here would probably be akin to trying to put outa dynamite fuse before it exploded.

Still, I felt like I should take this chance to finish him off, so I pulled out the HolySword at my waist and charged. Unfortunately, something fell from the ceilingand landed on me, preventing my advance.

> Skill Acquired: “Dark Magic: Demon”

> Skill Acquired: “Dark Resistance”

Damn, is it one of those black spheres that stopped the soldiers’ attacksbefore?

Getting new skills was great and all, but that magic circle was highlyconcerning. I had dropped my sword when I hit the ground, so I had to shove thesphere off with my bare hands.

The magic square rose up toward the ceiling, with the hell demon in thecenter.

“Ah, master! I, yearning.”

A jet-black giant emerged from the magic circle.

I could only describe this thing as a real demon.

He had the horns of a ram, glowing dark-red eyes, and gleaming black skin.There were shining metal claws at the ends of each of his four arms. Black batwings sprouted from his back with veins of red, plus a forked tail with sharppoints on the end. The twenty-foot-tall giant was floating in midair.

This was a level 62 greater hell demon, with skills in three kinds of magic—Wind, Lightning, and Dark—as well as hand-to-hand combat. On top of that, hehad five extra skills inherent to his species—“Flight,” “Petrifying Breath,”“Poison,” “Regeneration,” and “Spawn Creation.”

“How can this be?! It summoned an intermediate hell demon?”

“Wrong, Human. The Great I, Displeased.”

“My master is the demon lord’s right-hand man! A god among demons! I,correcting!”

“I don’t believe it. A greater hell demon?!”

Stunned by the new enemy, the viscount and captain fell to their knees indespair—realizing it was a superior hell demon. The only ones who seemed ableto bear the news were the battle-crazy warrior and the Oracle.

“You Did Good Work Creating The Labyrinth And Summoning Me. The Great I,Gratified.”

The giant beast grabbed the eyeball demon.

“Ah, I can be a part of master again! I, delighted!”

With that, the greater demon bit into his subordinate and devoured him.

When this gruesome ritual was completed, another head sprouted from themonster’s, his face nothing but an eyeball.

They fused somehow? Well, at least he didn’t evolve or level up or anything.

“Soldiers, Stand Up And Fight. The Great I, Choosing You.”

A howl overlapped the creature’s voice, apparently from the new head.

Winds that would put a hurricane to shame whipped up in the room, throwingthe soldiers against the wall. I raced against the gale, catching Zena and theOracle priestess before they hit the wall, too.

The men are going to have to bear it themselves. I can’t catch everyone.

> Skill Acquired: “Wind Magic: Demon”

> Skill Acquired: “Wind Resistance”

I gained two new skills as I fought the magic, so I put some points into “WindResistance.”

Grabbing my Holy Sword from the rock it was lodged in, I stood facing thedemon. He looked down at me scornfully, but his frown deepened into a scowl ofhatred when he saw my sword.

“So There’s A Hero Among Us, Is There? Did You Get A Divine Revelation? TheGreat I, Enraged.”

Even as he spoke, the creature was casting magic in the background. This thingis seriously sneaky.

A jet-black aura appeared around his body. Probably some kind of supportmagic.

But I can be sneaky, too. I checked the effect of the demon’s magic on my ARscreen. Sure enough, it was a fortifying spell. Physical damage cut by 90percent, the ridiculous effect read.

“Your Carelessness Will Be Your Downfall! The Great I, Full Power.”

The greater hell demon howled again; his claws, horns, and tail glowed black. Anew AR pop-up appeared: Physical attack power 300 percent UP.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. How much buffing up do you need to do?

If I just stood by and watched, this situation was only going to get worse; itwas time for action.

I wouldn’t be able to take out his legs with my sword, so I aimed and fired withthe Magic Gun at maximum power.

The demon twisted out of the way of what should have been a nearly invisiblebullet, and he came at me with a speed I wouldn’t have expected from such ahuge brute.

Leaving a trail of red light in his wake, the demon slashed his poisonous clawsdown at me. I leaned back and dodged the strike, using my absurd strength toswing my sword upward. But the attack barely scratched the hell demon’s skin. Ihad thought I’d be used to combat by now with all the monster exterminationwe’d done, but I apparently still had a ways to go.

“What’s Wrong, Hero? Aren’t You Any Good With Your Holy Sword? The GreatI, Disappointed.”

The tiny scratch I’d made on him healed in the blink of an eye.

I guess the Oracle was right—without the Hero title, I can’t use the HolySword to its full strength.

I continued evading his attacks and launching counterattacks of my own, butthe demon dodged my magic bullets, and my sword would barely scratch him, soI wasn’t dealing much damage.

And then, apparently tired of my efforts, he launched a thunderbolt attack atme. I didn’t have a chance to dodge it, so the lightning struck me dead-on.

> Skill Acquired: “Lightning Magic: Demon”

> Skill Acquired: “Lightning Resistance”

> Skill Acquired: “Paralysis Resistance”

“Ow, my hands and feet are tingling.”

If I had to compare it to anything, I’d say it was like a more extreme form ofthe pins and needles in your limbs after you kneel for a long time. Checking myHP gauge, I saw I’d taken about five points of damage.

I tried to dodge the demon’s claws as they swiped toward me, but my limbswere still a little numb, so I was a second too late. I blocked with my sword, but itstill managed to graze my shoulder.

> Skill Acquired: “Poison Resistance”

> Skill Acquired: “Disease Resistance”

> Skill Acquired: “Decay Resistance”

How many status conditions can you inflict with one attack?! Luckily, I seemedto have resisted them all, because nothing strange happened to my body.

Putting some distance between the demon and myself, I funneled points intomy new skills.

“You’re Sturdy For A Human! The Great I, Impressed.”

But apparently, surviving all those attacks and conditions had left me a littleoverconfident.

The demon breathed a puff of gray air that crept up my left side.

The surface of my body started to crust over. I yanked a cloak out of Storage toward off the rest of the petrification breath.

> Skill Acquired: “Petrification Resistance”

I freaked out a bit, but it looked like all that had hardened were my clothes andthe surface of my body; when I flexed my fingers a few times, the plaster-likematerial flaked away, revealing perfectly smooth skin underneath.

Man, I’m lucky my level is so much higher than that thing’s.

The demon seemed startled that his Petrifying Breath hadn’t worked on me,but he diverted my attention with dark missiles and wind blades, then came atme with his claws while I was dodging in midair.

Crap, I forgot—it’s a bad move in fighting games to evade in the air, isn’t it?

The petrified part of my robe was brittle, and it tore off, exposing my shoulder.

I took damage from the attack, but my “Self-Healing” skill closed up the woundas soon as it was inflicted, so while my robe got a little bloodied up, my HP gaugewas just fine.

Still, it probably wasn’t safe to lose too much blood, so I’d better be carefulnot to rely too much on “Self-Healing.”

The demon recklessly reached out to grab me, and I took this one-in-a-millionchance to lop the arm right off.

Huh? I thought his physical damage was reduced by 90 percent?

But no sooner did the arm hit the ground than the hell demon grew a new onein its place. The severed limb morphed like a ball of clay, forming into a lesser helldemon.

“That’s A Sharp Sword You Have There, But The More You Cut Me Up, TheMore Demon Spawn I’ll Create. The Great I, Cautioning.”

The arm demon rushed to attack the captain and his soldiers. Luckily, he didn’thave any magic skills, so they should be able to handle him. Just to make theirjob a little easier, I used my Magic Gun to shoot his legs.

“No Matter How Good You Are With That Sword, You Won’t Be Able To BeatMe If You Can’t Use Its Full Power. The Great I, Derisive.”

So it’s like the Oracle said: “Only the Holy Sword of a hero can defeat a demonlord.” Damn, does the same rule apply to greater hell demons?

But I have just two kinds of magic spells.

Zena had said weaker magic wouldn’t work on greater hell demons, so FireShot was no good.

And using Meteor Shower here was out of the question. It could probably beatthis guy, but Zena and the beastfolk girls could get caught in it, too. Even thepeople of Seiryuu City and I probably wouldn’t get out unscathed.

While I was distracted thinking about this, I dodged the demon’s claws only toget hit squarely by his tail, sending me flying across the ground and into theopposite wall.

The impact made me dizzy, and I shook my head quickly before standing backup.

Things were only going to get worse if I didn’t do something soon.

My Holy Sword could cut the demon, but not only would he heal, he’d producemore enemies.

The only two spells I had were either too weak or too strong.

And he could dodge the Magic Gun.

Hmm? Or can he?

“The Great I, Attacking.”

The hell demon came at me with a dropkick. Several tons of weight crusheddown on me, and pieces of the floor scattered everywhere as I was slammedback against the wall.

Man, if I didn’t have “Pain Resistance,” that definitely would’ve made mefaint.

“… Air Hammer Kitsui!”

“… Flame Spear Honoo no Yari!”

“… Sacred Javelin Seinaru Yari!”

Just then, Zena, Viscount Belton, and the Oracle all struck the hell demon withtheir magic.

He resisted most of the magic, so he didn’t take much damage, but they’dcreated more than enough of a gap for me. I’d dropped the Magic Gun and theHoly Sword, but I still had a backup Magic Gun ready in my Storage.

“How Dare You Interrupt My Fun With Your Weak Magic? The Great I,Offended.”

Still pinning me down with one of his feet, the monster lifted a nearby boulderand prepared to throw it at Zena and the others.

Like I’m gonna let you do that.

I took the Magic Gun out of Storage and fired it point-blank. With the poweron maximum, of course.

“Gunhghgh! The Great I, Careless.”

The first shot hit the demon, but he was quick to abandon the boulder andjump away, so he dodged my other attacks. I hate the stupid one-second lagafter I fire this thing.

But the damage I’d inflicted was barely 1 percent of his HP. He seemed torecover from magic attacks slower than sword cuts, though, so maybe if I couldhit him over and over…

I’ll distract him with Fire Shot and then shoot him at point-blank range. MyMP gauge seems to regenerate really fast, so as long as I don’t use MeteorShower or anything, I shouldn’t have to worry about running out.

Hoping to make the Fire Shot at least a little more powerful, I put away theHoly Sword I’d just recovered and took out a staff instead. The viscount andZena used them, so it must have some effect on the strength of magic.

“Given Up On The Holy Sword You Couldn’t Use, Have You? The Great I,Observant.”

The demon was half crouching some distance away, ready to dodge in anydirection.

I selected Fire Shot from my magic menu.

Eat this!

BOOM!!

White light blinded my view, and a thunderous roar echoed so loudly, my earsseemed to fail me for a moment.

When my vision returned, I saw the half-charred and smoking hell demon, plusa huge hole in the labyrinth wall behind him. The surface was still bright red,bubbling like lava.

What was THAT?

…Oh yeah, now I remember.

When I’d used Meteor Shower from the magic menu instead of the icon, it wasdozens of times more powerful. I guess it would be the same way with otherspells, too.

A gust of hot steam blew toward me. It seemed like it’d burn my throat if Iinhaled it, so I held my breath.

“How Could One So Skilled In Combat Also Be A Sorcerer? The Great I,Uncomprehending.”

From behind a rock somewhere, I heard the viscount exclaiming. “That couldonly have been the greater spell Crimson Javelin!”

Nope, sorry, it was just a super-basic Fire Shot.

But if it was going to be this powerful, that might actually make it harder touse. I could definitely beat this guy with three more hits like that, but he seemedto have realized that, too, because he was moving to hide behind Zena and theothers so I couldn’t attack.

Sorry, Mr. Eyesore.

But you’re already in checkmate.

I put away the staff and switched back to the Holy Sword.

Because when I remembered the thing about the magic menu, I alsoremembered something else.

I launched myself forward, kicking rocks aside as I charged toward the demon.

“Only the Holy Sword of a hero can defeat a demon lord.”

I fended off the demon’s desperate “Petrifying Breath” with a tent fromStorage, then slid right under his legs.

Greater hell demons rule over lesser demons. They’re the “right-hand man” ofa demon lord—they’re even “godlike.”

The petrified tent served to shield me from sight.

From its shadow, I hit the ceiling with a Fire Shot, distracting everyone in thearea.

But while I have Holy Swords, I don’t have the Hero title.

Using the radar as my guide, I leaped off the ground, then kicked off theceiling, altering my direction. My feet felt kind of hot.

So I can’t deliver the killing blow.

Leaping around in a triangle, I slashed at the hell demon’s wings, snatchingaway his ability to fly.

But is that really true?

I now had only seconds to win before he regenerated his wings.

Think about your titles. What do you have?

I changed my title and my sword, and as my foe paused to grow back his wings,I brought my weapon straight down on the crown of his head.

The blade, so dark it seemed to absorb all the light around it, cut right throughthe jet-black demon. Black dust spewed from his body as he began to crumbleaway.

“What Kind Of Sword Is That?! The Great…I…Defeated…”

As soon as the demon finished speaking, the dust turned to a faint gray hazeand disappeared.

The lack of resistance unnerved me a little bit, as if I’d killed only an illusion,but when I checked my log, it showed that I really had defeated him.

While everyone around me was stunned, I quickly put the sword back in itsscabbard and took my leave.

Now that I thought about it, the method I had used to defeat him was simple.

If the title Hero and a Holy Sword could kill a demigod-like demon, then surelythe Godkiller title and a Divine Blade could kill a god, too.

Something like that, anyway.

I returned to the small room where I’d made my transformation before,changed back into my old clothes, and climbed back up the pit. The dungeonwalls were made of tougher stuff than normal rock, so it was a little moredifficult to make footholds with my fingers.

“Master!”

When I was about fifteen feet away from the top, Tama came down towardme, tied to a lifeline. She must have been on her way to rescue me. I could seeLiza and Pochi peering down from the hole above.

“Thanks for coming to get me.”

“Yeah!”

I put Tama on my shoulders and climbed the rest of the way.

“Pochi, Liza, thank you, too.”

“I’m so glad…”

“You’re all right, sir!”

Liza was so overwhelmed with emotion that she looked about to cry, so Ihanded her a fresh handkerchief from my bag. Pochi and Tama immediatelygrabbed on to me and cried, possibly wanting handkerchiefs of their own.

All right, all right. As long as they’re just tears of relief, you can cry as much asyou like.

Zena raced toward me, and I waved at her. It hadn’t even been two days sincewe got trapped in the labyrinth, but it felt like we’d been in there much longer.

At some point, I had gotten a few new titles.

> Title Acquired: Labyrinth Conqueror

> Title Acquired: Dances with Demons

> Title Acquired: Demon Slayer [Greater]

> Title Acquired: Hero

…I wouldn’t have minded getting that last one a little earlier, you know.

Back to the Surface

Satou here. One time, due to a combination of human error and goodfortune, I ended up staying in a high-class suite in a fancy hotel. I’m just alowly middle-class commoner, so I was too nervous to enjoy it fully in theend. I guess you can have too much of a good thing.

With Pochi and Tama each hanging on to one of my hands, I headed up thespiral staircase to the exit. I was the very last one of the civilians to exit. Thebattle-crazy warrior and a few of his subordinates were still below, standingguard at the door.

I thought there might be a bag check when we got to the surface, so I switchedout my Garage Bag with the normal standin while nobody was looking. I alsotook about two-thirds of the cores that Pochi was carrying, putting the rest inStorage by way of the Garage Bag.

The real number of cores was way more than other people had, so I figuredthis was best in order to avoid any trouble.

“Once we get outside, we should find something good to eat. Is there any foodyou want in particular?”

“Meeeat?”

“Meat, please, sir! We saw some huuuge meat on a carriage earlier, sir!”

These kids really love meat, huh?

I had assumed it was because they were beastfolk, but I guess most kids do likeit.

But the “huge meat” Pochi was talking about was probably wyvern, wasn’t it?If possible, I’d rather avoid that, so I did my best to guide her toward some otherkind.

“Pochi, Tama. Meat certainly is a wonderful thing. But for slaves to demand it

like that is reaching far beyond our means.”

“Our…means?”

“Liza uses hard words, sir.”

“Meat is a luxury.”

Liza had stepped in to rebuke them for me, but as long as we went to streetstalls, I didn’t think it would be that expensive. Even the wild boar steak I hadbefore was only a few coppers.

“Well, we should celebrate getting out of the labyrinth alive. Why don’t we getsome meat?”

“Yaaay!”

“Thanks, sir!”

“If that is your will, master. I’ll be sure to savor every last bite!”

Still holding hands with me, Pochi and Tama jumped around for joy. When Ilooked back at Liza, she was wearing a grave expression and clenching her fist asif making a solemn vow.

You know you don’t have to get that serious about it, right?

The sunlight was blinding when we walked out of the labyrinth’s exit.

Pochi and Tama dragged me forward, bounding into the light of the outsideworld.

When we emerged, we were met by the anxious faces and loud clamoring ofthe people who’d come out before us.

Looking around, the reason became fairly evident.

The exit led into an empty lot about the size of a school yard. Rather thanbeing perfectly level, the ground formed a spiral that centered on the dungeon’smouth. Most likely, this was a remnant of the creation of the labyrinth, when ithad sucked in the plaza and the buildings around it.

Surrounding the exit, as if to wall it in, was a makeshift fence supported bysandbags, with cannons like the sort I’d seen in the anti-dragon defense tower.Behind these cannons, archers stood with large crossbows at the ready.

Of course, all the weapons were all pointed at the opening—in other words,the very place we were standing.

Pochi, Tama, and even Liza looked nervous, so I asked somebody who lookedlike they had a better grasp on the situation.

“Well, they’re telling us we have to stay here until they figure out if any of usare monsters disguised as humans, or infected with a disease from demons, oranything like that.”

I see… So we have to be quarantined.

According to the checks I’d done earlier, there were no monsters in the groupand nobody affected by disease or poison of any kind. Of course, I wasn’t aboutto announce that to anyone, but even if I did, it wasn’t as though anyone wouldbelieve me anyway.

I checked the soldiers around the barricade, but none of them had anyjudgment-based skills, so we would just have to wait until a person or machinethat could determine these things arrived.

Luckily, we had the Oracle and her priestesses among us, so there was nocause for concern about anyone dying of their injuries. Those with minor woundswere left to their own devices for now, but people with broken bones or seriousgashes had been healed with magic and were resting on cloaks spread out on theground.

Oh, right—I still have three potions and one unused salve, so I should offerthem to the wounded. I’ll just buy more souvenirs for Martha and the otherslater. They probably wouldn’t want to use medicine from a stranger, so I askedZena to use them instead to heal the others.

The beastfolk kids must have been bored to tears with waiting, because Tamahad sprawled out asleep on my lap while Pochi climbed on my shoulders.

I didn’t want them to draw the ire of the other survivors by making too muchnoise, so I let them lean against me and rest. Liza was still holding her spear andseemed to be standing on guard, so I had her sit across from me and take abreak, too.

After we’d waited for an hour or so, some carriages arrived, and the

quarantine operation began. Apparently, they’d be calling people over one at atime and checking them using a Yamato stone.

The captain and the Oracle priestess were called first, then the magic soldierZena. It seemed like they’d be checking on military personnel first, so we’d betoward the end.

“Okay, I’m going next, but I’ll wait for you on the other side.”

“’kay!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Understood.”

The three of them looked nervous as I proceeded to the carriages. I left my bagwith the civil-official lady and proceeded to the Yamato stone.

It would probably look weird for me to still be level 1 with no skills afterescaping from a dungeon, right?

I opened the networking tab on my menu. The girls were level 13 now, so Ifigured level 10 would be about right. I picked a few skills that a trader wouldhave: “Haggling” and “Estimation.” Is it weird if I don’t have any combat skills? Iadded “Throwing” and “Evasion,” just to be safe.

Following the official’s instructions, I placed my hands over the Yamato stone.My gaze was tempted toward the cleavage of the female official across from me,but I forcefully resisted. Instead I read the information displayed by the stone,making sure that it had updated with my changes.

“My goodness. For someone who’s not a soldier or an explorer to be at thislevel at such a young age, you must have gone through a lot of hardships.”

“Oh, it’s nothing so remarkable as that.”

The female knight in heavy makeup standing over the stone was impressedwith my level, but I deflected it like a true Japanese person.

“I told you, hand over the spear!”

“My master made this for me—it’s as precious to me as my life. I cannot partwith it, not even for a moment!”

“I told you, your feelings have nothing to do with it!”

Hearing arguing voices behind me, I turned around to see that Liza was puttingup a fight about parting with her spear.

“Liza, go ahead and give it to them. I’ll make sure they return it later.”

“I-if that is your will, master…”

At my words, Liza reluctantly gave up her spear to the civil official.

I made a note of the woman’s name and affiliation in the memo pad of mynetworking screen. It’d be great if we could get it back right away, but judging bymy map, it looked like everyone was getting loaded into carriages and brought tothe castle.

I doubted we’d be imprisoned or put to death to keep us quiet or anything, butwe might be under house arrest until the situation was under control.

I’d imagine a dungeon appearing in the middle of the city and a greaterdemon showing up makes for a pretty unusual case.

I heard a small outcry behind me.

Apparently, they were surprised that Liza, a slave, was level 13 and even hadfour skills.

I couldn’t read her expression, so it was hard to tell what she was thinking, buther tail was twitching ever so slightly. I think she might be a little proud ofherself.

Pochi and Tama meekly handed over the bag of cores and rushed toward me.It looked like they’d been allowed through as a pair, probably because they werekids.

Neither of them could reach the Yamato stone, so Liza had to lift them up.Pochi seemed to enjoy being held aloft, letting her arms and legs swing back andforth.

Pochi placed her hands on the Yamato stone, as instructed by the civil official.This elicited even louder shouting than Liza’s had. They must have been amazedthat a ten-year-old child was level 13. Pochi had three skills, too.

Tama was last. Liza had to hold her up, like Pochi. Tama must have beenlooking forward to this part, because she eagerly played dead, letting her limbsdangle in the air.

The officials didn’t raise as much of a fuss about Tama; her status was just asimpressive, but seeing something surprising for the third time in the row tendsto take the shock out of it. Tama looked a little disappointed.

“It must have been tough to raise demi-human slaves to be this strong, right?”

“No, not at all. They’re very talented.”

It was true that we’d gone through tough times, but the girls were talented,too. I probably wouldn’t have died without them, but I definitely would’ve falleninto traps and suffered much more than I had.

A soldier guided the four of us onto a carriage. There were a few peopleaboard who had already gotten through inspection, too. There was a canopyover the cart, and armed guards stood at both exits.

We didn’t know anybody aboard, so we rode in relative silence.

A few of our fellow passengers seemed to dislike beastfolk, too, so I warnedPochi and Tama to behave themselves. Fear brings out an aggressive side ofpeople.

Finally, after a long ride in an oppressive atmosphere, we arrived at the count’scastle. There was a cloth over both openings blocking our view, so I didn’t evenget to enjoy the scenery.

When we got out of the carriage, more soldiers surrounded us and began toescort us somewhere.

“Wh-where are you taking us?!”

“Yeah! We went through hell to get out of that labyrinth!”

A delinquent-looking boy and a middle-aged man with a scary face flared up atthe soldiers. They’ve got some guts to do that with so many armed guardssurrounding us.

“We’re going to have you lot stay in the dungeon for a few days. Orders fromthe count himself. Those who refuse to cooperate will be found guilty of treason.

Now be quiet and follow orders! This is a matter of public security.”

Whoa, I thought we would just get house arrest or something! I must haveunderestimated the power of the aristocracy. I guess now I’m going toexperience firsthand being in jail.

I had just saved Seiryuu City from the clutches of a greater hell demon, andthis was the thanks I got: a personal invitation to the dungeon. Bummer. But if Iwanted to keep my identity a secret, I’d have to go along without complaining.

The threat of being charged with treason must have worked, because fromthat point on, everyone followed along with the soldiers in silence. I found outlater that if you’re convicted of treason, your family members are consideredguilty as well.

The dungeon was dark and a little cold. The cells didn’t even have beds, so itlooked like we’d have to sleep directly on the stone floor. We were told that we’deach be given a single cloth blanket, so the nights would probably be freezing. Tomake matters worse, the only toilet was a pot with nothing screening itwhatsoever.

I wish they’d worry a little more about privacy around here.

Overall, it seemed pretty miserable, but in the end, we didn’t have to spend asingle night there.

“Oi, which one of you is Satou?”

“That’s me.”

“Come with me. You’re in a different area.”

A prim civil official who seemed sorely out of place in the dungeon came tosummon me.

Whoa, you want me to leave the girls in a place like this? Let’s see what my“Negotiation” skill has to say about that.

“These three kids are my slaves. If I’m being moved elsewhere, I’d like to bringthem as well, please.”

“Hmm. I was ordered to come and get just you. I wasn’t told anything aboutslaves.”

Is this the part where I offer him a little something to sweeten the deal?

A gold coin would probably be too much, so I slipped a silver coin into theofficial’s hand. “Is there anything we can do about that?”

> Skill Acquired: “Bribery”

> Skill Acquired: “Persuasion”

The silver seemed effective: The man’s attitude abruptly shifted.

“…But I wasn’t told not to bring them, either. Very well, they can come alongfor now. Don’t blame me if they’re turned away, though.”

“That’s fine with me.”

I can probably just persuade the person who asked for me, too. My new skillslooked like they’d help with that, so I assigned skill points to each of them.Although if I overused them, I got the feeling I’d raise an event flag to turn into acrooked trader.

The person we were guided to was an elderly man I’d never seen before.

“A pleasure to meet you, Sir Satou. I am Deschamps, the humble butler of thehouse of Belton.”

…Aww, his name’s not Sebastian? Or Jeeves?

“Nice to meet you, Sir Deschamps.”

“Sir Satou, I implore you to simply call me Deschamps.”

Calling such a fine-looking old gentleman by his name like that would be apretty tough hurdle.

“I am so terribly sorry about the delay in our arrangements. Imagine forcingthe savior of the viscount to stay in a dungeon! Please accept our humblestapologies.”

“Not at all. I’m grateful enough to you that I won’t have to spend a night downthere. It’s fairly difficult to see, anyway.”

Apologizing profusely all the while, Mr. Deschamps led me to one of theguesthouses. Man, this castle is huge. It’s at least as big as my old college’scampus.

“Please avail yourself of this room. There should be a maid assigned here aswell.”

Mr. Deschamps rang a bell on a table near the door, and woman in her latetwenties appeared from an adjoining room.

Despite being a maid, she wasn’t wearing the kind of uniform you’d see inAkiba or classic Victorian England. Instead, she was wearing an ordinary dressbefitting a lady-in-waiting.

So they don’t have aprons or lace headpieces here yet, huh? I’d think aJapanese person should introduce that before miso or soy sauce. Okay, maybenot, but still. How disappointing.

“I’ll be taking my leave here, by your pardon, but if there’s anything you need,please don’t hesitate to ask the attending maid. This is only a trifling little thing,but it’s a token of appreciation from our master.”

Mr. Deschamps handed me a small pouch. There wasn’t money inside butsome small pebble-like objects. Probably precious stones. Although if it wascandy, that’d be pretty funny.

It would be rude to refuse, so I accepted it while giving my thanks to be relayedto the viscount. I would’ve preferred to thank him in person, but since he wassending his butler to give me this, he must be too busy to meet me. I think aviscount is one step down from a count, after all.

Still, if memory served me correctly, a ranked noble living in a different noble’sterritory seemed pretty unusual. I guess even if the titles were similar, I shouldn’tjust carelessly assume the system was exactly the same as in medieval Europe.

Leaving the rest to the maid, Mr. Deschamps left.

“Please, allow me to show you to your room.”

“Yes, please do.”

I followed behind the maid, listening to her explanation.

Pochi and Tama were under strict orders from Liza to stay quiet; she wascarrying them in her arms like stuffed animals. With both their hands pressedover their mouths, their pose was pretty adorable.

The butler and the maid had both referred to this as a “room,” but theentrance hall alone was at least 130 square feet; the whole guesthouse wasprobably about 7,000 square feet of floor space. If this was a hotel suite, a singlenight’s stay would probably cost several months’ salary.

The floor of the living room was carpeted with something like felt andcontained several comfy-looking leather sofas. There were cloth-covered pillowson the furniture, too; it looked like the kind of place where I could really veg out.

This room was about five hundred square feet, with what looked like achimneyless fireplace against the far wall. My interest must have shown on myface, because the maid supplied an explanation.

“This is a magic tool that utilizes fire stones. One need only touch this sheetcopper and let magic flow into it, and the stones inside the hearth will produceheat. If you wish to adjust the temperature, simply ring the bell, and I will comeright away, so please don’t hesitate to call me at any time.”

Ooh! How very fantasy-esque.

The chandelier on the ceiling didn’t seem to have any candles, either, so itmust be another magic tool. An AR pop-up identified it as a Light ShowerChandelier. I’m looking forward to nighttime, then.

Next we were guided to a 350-square-foot parlor.

The furniture here was just as high-class as in the previous room, but maybebecause these objects had sharper angles, they seemed more formal.

Next was a dining room with a huge table that could probably seat a lot ofpeople. It was made of a dark stone, possibly granite, which was smooth to thetouch.

She didn’t show them to us, but the maid briefly mentioned there was also alinen room, the maid’s waiting room, and a kitchenette attached to the parlor.

Up the stairs by the entrance was the main bedroom, which was just as largeas the living room. I practically heard trumpet fanfare as I laid eyes on thecanopied king-size bed in the center. It looked like the softest thing ever.

Pochi and Tama immediately moved to leap onto it, but fortunately, Liza had a

firm hold on both of them, so the maid was unperturbed. Nice one, Liza.

Apparently, the small room attached to this one was for servants and guards.It was really plain, with a hard-looking bed and a simple wooden chair. What anextreme contrast.

There were restrooms on each floor, but they were pit toilets like the one atthe Gatefront Inn. The toilet-paper substitute was straw paper instead of a strawbundle, so I guess that was an improvement.

Unfortunately, it didn’t look like there was a bath.

“Is something the matter?”

“No, I was just thinking that I haven’t seen a bath anywhere…,” I said with thefaintest hope that I might be corrected.

“Ah, would you like to bathe? In that case, we can have the manservants bringup a tub. I’ll have everything arranged by this evening.”

Bring up a bathtub?! Those manservants must be ripped.

“I’m sorry to ask for something so difficult.”

“Not at all! If you have any other requests, don’t hesitate to ask.”

I didn’t really have anything, but I heard a small growl from someone’sstomach behind me. I wasn’t sure whether it was Pochi or Tama, but it wasprobably about time to eat.

“Well then, I will go and make preparations for lunch. Is there any food that Iought to avoid? I’m happy to accommodate your tastes.”

“No, don’t worry. I’m not too picky.”

The maid bowed and left the room.

Pochi and Tama had fallen asleep in Liza’s arms. So…it was Liza’s stomach thatgrowled before? Her face was a little red, so I pretended not to have noticedanything.

When I saw the food lined up on the table, I tilted my head in puzzlement.

There were seven plates of various sizes, all under silver lids to keep them fromcooling. But why was there only enough for one person? Was this another

instance of discrimination against demi-humans?

“Excuse me, but isn’t there any food for these children?”

“The food for your servants has been prepared in a separate room.”

“Would it be possible to have their portion brought here as well? Eating mealstogether is one of my house’s customs.”

What I couldn’t say, of course, was that I didn’t want to eat all by myself.

Fast food was one thing, but a feast like this should be a lively affair with asmany people as possible, I think.

The beastfolk girls were given tureens of stew with rye bread. At my request,the maid brought us extra plates so that I could share my food with the otherthree.

“Mm! Food in a castle is just as delicious as I’d expect.”

“Yummy, yummy!”

“The meat in the stew is so big and tasty, sir!”

“Indeed… It truly melts in the mouth, doesn’t it?”

Uh…there’s no meat like that on my plate. Unlike my dishes, their stew hadsome kind of blackish chunks.

Checking the AR screen, I saw that the meat on my plate was lamb, while theirswas wyvern. So this is what Pochi was talking about when we left the labyrinth.The three of them seem to be enjoying it, so I won’t make a fuss.

After thanking the maid for a delicious meal, I politely requested that all four ofus be given the same food for dinner, even if it meant lowering the overall qualityof the spread.

It’d be a pain to split it all up from my plates every time, after all.

My long-awaited bath came in the form of a marble bathtub big enough forone person, carried in by four manservants.

On top of that, several more manservants, or maybe slaves, carried in waterthat had been heated elsewhere, each making multiple round-trips to deliver it.This is a pretty big process. I’d been sure that they’d just have someone use

Everyday Magic to fill it up in a flash.

After more than an hour of preparation, the bath was finally ready.

I felt kind of bad for the people who’d had to go to all the trouble to set thisup, but there was no use in holding back now. I’ll tip them later.

“Do you two want to take a bath, too?”

“Yeah!”

“Yes, sir!”

Pochi and Tama were staring at the tub with great interest, so I invited them tojoin me. They’re only elementary-school age, so I don’t think it’s a problem if Ilet them take a bath with me.

Apparently, they did have some short robes for bathing, but it didn’t makesense to soak with clothes on.

“First, before we sit in the bath, we have to clean ourselves off.”

I taught the kids how to use soap, which they responded to enthusiastically.

“Waaah! It’s making white bubbly stuff!”

“It’s slippery, sir!”

“But it seems to be removing the dirt effectively… Is something wrong,master?”

At some point, Liza had naturally joined in with Pochi and Tama. Her key areaswere well hidden with soapsuds, but it still felt a little weird, since she wasaround high school age. Her chest was just as flat as the kids’, but I still couldn’thelp noting the curve of her back.

“The water’s hot, sir!”

“It’s…weird? But it feels good!”

“How strange to use water to wash one’s body! It’s terribly luxurious, but itfeels wonderful.”

Before we had even gotten into the tub, bath time was already a big hit. Lizalooked particularly happy.

Possibly because of all the years they’d spent as slaves, it took a while to get allthe grime off them. As a result, the bathwater had cooled. I asked the maid if shecould bring more warm water.

“… Heat Kanetsu!”

After the maid brought some water to fill the tub again, she used EverydayMagic to heat it up for us.

So heating up a bath is cause for magic, but…?

Well, I guess it was probably more efficient than replacing all the water…

Wait, that’s not what’s important here.

What I really want to know is, why does she need to wear that to do magic?She wasn’t completely naked, but in the tiny robe she was wearing, she was atleast halfway there. She had a great figure, and if that robe got wet, thingswould definitely show through that probably shouldn’t. Things could get steamyhere in more ways than one.

Thanking her for warming the bath, I asked her about her outfit in the mostroundabout way possible.

“Ah, yes. In order to be prepared to meet your needs at any moment, I havebeen waiting on standby in this.”

Ah…I see.

With no small reluctance, I politely declined her services.

Yeesh, that was close. If the beastfolk kids hadn’t been here, I might’ve gonedown a road that would earn this game an adults-only rating.

The tub wasn’t big enough for all of us to use at once, so we went in to batheand warm up one at a time.

Liza seemed to have taken a liking to the bath, because she meekly asked if shecould soak in it again for a while longer, so I took Pochi and Tama to dry off first.

I wiped each of them dry with a soft towel. Now in her dress again, the maidoffered to wipe me down, too, but again I politely refused.

I didn’t know how comfortable I was with that kind of service.

That evening, our dinner included such extravagant dishes as a huge roastedbird. It looked similar to a roast chicken to me, but apparently, it was a birdcalled a Shiga wiretail.

Cutting the whole roast seemed like it’d be pretty difficult, so instead ofputting on airs and insisting on doing it myself, I asked the maid for help; she cutit with truly impressive skill.

The beastfolk kids were especially fond of the parts that were on a bone.

Belatedly, I felt a wave of gratitude toward the viscount. This kind of treatmentwas worlds away from what we would’ve faced in the dungeon.

Come to think of it, I wonder if Nidoren and his friends are down there? Icouldn’t really get them out, but maybe I could see to it that they had a bettertime of it, at least?

I asked the maid about it after dinner; she said they should be able to get thembetter food and blankets, but she didn’t have the authority to send down thingslike furniture. That would require a budget from the viscount.

Is it just a matter of money? Because I can get that out of Storage.

“How much do you think they would need?”

“For just one person, one silver coin would be fine. However, since it’sapparently at least ten people, we would need two gold coins.”

What, is that all? I took the money out of my pocket and gave it to the maid,requesting that she see that the conditions were improved for the people in thedungeon.

“Yaaay!”

“It’s so fluffy, sir!”

Pochi and Tama jumped around on the bed.

I guess all kids see is a trampoline when they look at a bed this big.

Liza, too, sat down on the edge, enjoying its bounciness in her reserved way.

Each of us was supposed to sleep in our own beds, but Pochi and Tama turnedtheir puppy-dog eyes on me, and before I knew it, I was agreeing to let them

sleep in mine with me.

And, well, it seemed mean to make Liza sleep all by herself in the other room.

I practically sank into the mattress as I lay down. I had been awake the wholetime we were in the labyrinth, in order to secure the kids’ safety. Sure, I’m usedto pulling all-nighters anyway, but my high stamina also ensured that I felt fineeven without sleep.

Still, exhaustion had been gradually piling up on me all this time, and I finallyyielded to it in the soft bed, letting my mind relax.

With Pochi and Tama as warm as hot-water bottles by my side, I drifted off toa long-awaited quiet sleep.

Life under house arrest was surprisingly enriching.

I was often reading the introductory books on magic and alchemy that I’dfound in the labyrinth, so the time passed in the blink of an eye.

I tried practicing some spells in my free time, too, but I couldn’t pull off thosestupidly hard chants even once.

The beastfolk kids were really fidgety, clearly not accustomed to having timeon their hands, so I had them let off steam by practicing their sword techniquesand grappling in the courtyard.

I was running out of books, so I asked the maid to go out and buy more for me.It would look suspicious if I threw around too much money, so instead I gave hersome of the stones I’d received from the viscount.

I also asked her to pick up some picture books for Pochi and Tama, but theycouldn’t read, so I ended up reading out loud to them.

It kind of felt like I had kids of my own.

Although I was under house arrest, it wasn’t as though I didn’t get to seeanyone. On two occasions, someone who seemed to be a civil official visited me.

The first time, she’d come to question me about what happened in thelabyrinth and return my confiscated belongings.

During this visit, I was surprised to hear that “anything found in a dungeon

belongs to the person who found it.” So if you killed someone in a dungeon andtook their stuff, it would legally be yours? Hung up on this problem, I asked theofficial about it.

“Don’t worry about that. It would show up in the perpetrator’s ‘bounty’information on the Yamato stone. In Labyrinth City, there are people gifted withthe Eye of Judgment stationed at all dungeon exits to search for criminals. Thereare guards with the gift at each gate in Seiryuu City as well.”

Sounds like a convenient gift—which was a hereditary skill, by the way. Butapparently, this one was found only in the family lines of devout followers ofUrion. It appeared in one out of a few hundred people of the Urion faith, so eachcity had only a few individuals with it.

I wonder what gifts followers of other gods are granted?

It definitely seemed like all gods’ names end in -ion—except for the dragon godAconcagua. Is there some reason why that’s the only name that doesn’t followthe rule?

My thoughts had wandered a little, but the civil official’s talk had only justbegun.

Apparently, the count’s government was compulsorily purchasing the coresthat had been confiscated with my belongings, so I was given a small bag ofmoney in place of their return. This was apparently a standard law for anymonster hunted throughout the county, so inside a dungeon was no exception,she informed me.

Well, the amount of money I was given matches the market price of the cores,so I have no complaints.

Judging by the civil official’s tone, it seemed like cores were a resource thatwas usually in short supply. I’ll have to be careful when I off-load the rest ofthem that are in Storage right now.

“We can’t ascertain the safety of this monster meat, so I’m afraid we can’treturn it. This spear seems to be made from parts of a monster, too, so we can’tallow it to be taken into the city.”

Liza’s head whipped around at an alarming speed.

Wh-whoa! Is she actually mad?

Liza, stop. That expression is terrifying. See, even the civil official’s smile iscracking.

It made sense to me that the meat might be a problem in terms of diseasecontrol, but Liza seemed pretty attached to her weapon, so I tried to negotiate.

“That spear is actually quite strong, so is there any way I could ask you to havesomeone with a “Judgment” skill look at it to determine whether there’s anydanger? I’ll take on any fees for the assessment, of course, so I’m hoping thatyou can return it if it’s determined to be safe…?”

“V-very well. I’ll make the arrangements. If it’s judged as safe, it’ll be returnedto you with the rest of your weapons when you exit the castle.”

“Thank you very much.”

Oh, right—I should ask about the beastfolk girls.

“Um, I have another question…”

I asked her about the ownership rights of the girls.

“I see. So you found these slaves in the labyrinth after their owner passedaway, took them in, and brought them out along with you?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Liza nodded, too. Pochi and Tama were hanging on her legs, dozing off. Are weboring you?

“In that case, they now belong to you.”

“Really?”

I mean, I was planning to buy them and set them free, anyway, but still…

“Unless they killed their master themselves, any slaves whose master dies in adungeon are the same as objects found there. So both legally and customarilyspeaking, you are now their master.”

She wrote something on an official-looking piece of paper and handed it over.

“This is a temporary certificate to officially declare your ownership. It’ll work

only inside the city, so you should go to the town hall or a slavery firm to get theofficial contract drawn up.”

I asked whether we could take care of it in the castle somehow, but it wasn’twithin her jurisdiction, so it wouldn’t be possible. I guess bureaucracy wascomplicated even in a parallel world.

During this visit, I also gave her the names, locks of hair, and belongings of thedeceased from the labyrinth, so her second visit was to inform me of the results.

A sign had been posted on the wall beside the temporary station by thedungeon exit listing the names of the deceased, so they had been able to deliverthe locks of hair to the bereaved families. The families had wanted to buy backsome of the other belongings, so she gave me the money they’d offered.Apparently, this was taxed, too.

I told the civil official that I didn’t need any money, but she told me, “Pleaseaccept it. If there’s no fee, people will show up claiming to be relatives of thedeceased.”

I see. It’s a pretty tough world out there.

If accepting the reward pained me, she suggested that I could donate it to anorphanage or a temple.

Oh, that’s a good idea. I’ll have to ask Zena about where I should donate it.

On the fifth day of our house arrest, Zena came to visit me, along with SisterOhna.

Sipping on the ludicrously named “blue-green tea” that the maid had preparedfor us, we exchanged information.

“So, Zena, they released you two?”

“Yes. Since there’s a shortage of magic users, we were released almostimmediately. However, we’ve been working at the temporary garrison by thedungeon exit ever since.”

“That sounds rough.”

Apparently, they’d been put to work right after escaping from the maze. I’venever seen him, but this count seems pretty brutal.

“Well, my role is just to communicate with the team that’s investigating thelabyrinth, so it’s not too bad. The sorcerers have the biggest job—they’reworking until their magic dries up, trying to build a magic barrier so the labyrinthdoesn’t expand under the city.”

“It’s not only the sorcerers who are busy. We servants of God are also workingto consecrate the stone monument at the shrine that’s been built there. Ihaven’t had any time to sleep in these past three days.”

Sister, if you’re that overworked, you should have stayed at the temple to restinstead of coming along with Zena to visit me.

“The encampment by the entrance has a temporary wall around it, and they’vebeen quelling rumors in town by paying the minstrels to restrict whatinformation they release, so I’d imagine we can have you free in a few moredays.”

That’s good. It’s really comfortable here, but I’m getting a little bored of it.

Apparently, some minstrels served as a sort of public relations team. In games,they usually provided valuable support magic, so this new take was sort ofrefreshing.

Three days after Zena came to visit, we were set free.

“Sir Satou!”

As we headed toward the main gate of the castle, Nidoren and company, whohad also been released, met us.

“The prison guard told us you sent the warm food and cushions for us. We areall so incredibly grateful to you!”

Hearing who I was from Nidoren, the other men around him all thanked me atonce. As we walked toward the gate, the topic turned to how delicious the foodin the dungeon had been, so I was relieved that their treatment really had beenimproved.

“Thanks so much. It was even better than the food in the west quarter!”

“I wholeheartedly agree. There was no alcohol with it, of course, but I washappy enough just to be given stew with meat in a dungeon!”

“Yeah, it was so good, I coulda stayed there a few more days!”

“Nobody’s gonna believe us when we tell them about it back in the westquarter.”

“No kiddin’!”

With that, the men laughed heartily. They seemed to have taken imprisonmentpretty well. I’d like to be as tough as them someday.

Nidoren said he’d take care of the paperwork for the girls’ ownership free ofcharge as thanks for my help, so we went to meet him in the slave market.

I had wanted to go along with him immediately, but the horse-drawn carriagehe took refused to allow beastfolk on board, so we had to go on foot.

Apparently, demi-humans were treated a little better in the duchy to the southor Labyrinth City in the southwest, so maybe we should move there.

“Hey, you! With the dog ears!”

Ugh, don’t they have anything better to do? I turned around irritably to findthe blond young man we’d rescued from the spider in the labyrinth.

Come to think of it, he looked like he wanted to say something when we weretalking with Nidoren, too.

“Can I help you?”

“No, not you. I got something to say to the kid.”

He still wanted to insult her even after she’d saved his life? What a terribleingrate.

I started glaring at him without thinking, but he wasn’t looking at me. Instead,I accidentally locked eyes with a well-built ruffian behind him, who panicked andran off into an alley.

What was that about? You have the “Intimidation” skill, too, you know… Idon’t get it.

While the other guy distracted me, the young man told Pochi what he’dwanted to say.

“Thanks for saving me. I’m sorry I kicked you.”

He said it in a low voice as he walked away, but all four of us heard it clearly.

I doubt he’d changed his anti-beastfolk ways entirely, but if we had improvedhis attitude even a little, that was still pretty good.

Pochi looked up at me triumphantly, and I ruffled her hair enthusiastically. Hertail looked like it was going to break off if it wagged any harder.

Tama ran over and clung to me, too, of course, so I patted her head as well.Liza stood nearby, looking down at them and nodding with a fond smile. Whatare you, their mom?

Later, at Nidoren’s place, I signed the contract to officially become the girls’master.

I wanted to set them free right away, but the slave trader entreated me to takea look at a few slaves who hadn’t sold at the auction, so I followed him dutifully.

I know I technically just took on the girls, but I’m planning to set them freeright away, so I’m not looking to buy any more. I’d rather just hire a sightseeingguide.

Since the girls he wanted to show me were left over from the auction, it wasno surprise that they all had certain quirks.

I paid little attention to his explanation, until finally we were down to the lasttwo he wanted to show me.

When I saw them, I quickly revised my opinion of Nidoren’s salesmanship skills.I see… So he showed me all those others with strange quirks so that these twowould look better by comparison?!

The first was the Japanese-looking little girl I’d seen in a carriage on CenterStreet. She was only fourteen, though she was adorable with a very lovely face.Her long black hair shone with such purity that she could easily make a living inshampoo commercials. If she weren’t so young, I probably would’ve beentempted.

“M-my name is Lulu.” She introduced herself in a half whisper. Apparently theshy type, she immediately lowered her head after speaking, hiding her beautifulface in her hair.

Nidoren followed up with more information, but I could scarcely believe myears.

“She might be difficult to look at, but she does possess the ‘Etiquette’ skill!”

You’re saying she’s ugly?

If this girl isn’t good-looking, then neither is 99 percent of all women, youknow!

I thought maybe “difficult to look at” was some roundabout expression forcomplimenting a girl’s beauty, but as he went on, it seemed like that wasn’t thecase.

Are the standards of beauty just different here?

With Nidoren’s permission, I lightly touched her hair and her cheek. No, Iwasn’t giving in to her charms and changing my class to “child molester.” Therewas just something that I wanted to confirm.

I whispered a few words in her ear, but she just looked perplexed, as if she’dnever heard them before.

I had thought that maybe she was a Japanese person, but I guess I was wrong.

The next and final slave Nidoren introduced me to was the lilac-haired girl whoI’d seen with Lulu before—Arisa.

She was eleven years old, a beautiful little girl with flowing locks and NorthernEuropean features.

While she wasn’t quite on the same level as Lulu, it was still surprising that shehadn’t been sold, until I remembered her sinister titles.

Arisa’s round, wide eyes looked at me pleadingly.

Okay, please stop staring like that.

“I’m terribly sorry, Sir Satou. She’s normally so clever that even her ill-omenedpurple hair would seem like a trifling matter, but she appears to have beencaptivated by your charms…”

With this strange comment, Nidoren urged the girl to speak.

Uh, no. That’s definitely not the case, buddy. I couldn’t help but smile wryly.

Still, I was surprised it was her hair color and not her titles that had preventedher from being sold. Purple hair certainly was unusual, but I’d never heard of itbeing a bad omen.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you…Sir Satou.”

There was something strange about the way her childish voice hadpronounced my name.

“My name is Arisa. I became a slave after losing my kingdom, but I could giveyou any information about this world that you’d like to hear. I’m most certain Iwould be of great use to you in various ways.”

Her brisk manner of speaking was highly unsuited to her extremely youthfulvoice. I was probably imagining it, but it seemed uncannily similar to a studentinterviewing for a job.

As her title implied, she was a former princess, which might explain why shecould smile so elegantly while upselling herself so vigorously.

However, I did feel like there was some uncomfortable hidden meaning behindthat last phrase. You don’t really think I’d ask a child for sexual favors, do you?

Purple hair aside, the phrase this world and the name Arisa definitely intriguedme.

Again, I got permission from Nidoren to lean in and attempt the sameexperiment I’d tried with Lulu.

“AAAAH! I hate spiders! Get it off! Ew! This is the worst!”

Her unruffled princess-like demeanor vanished immediately, and she reactedthe way any normal girl would.

After all, I’d whispered, “There’s a spider in your hair” into her ear…inJapanese.

I don’t know what kanji Arisa is written with, but this girl is definitely like me.

Lulu and Arisa.

From the moment I saw them being jostled along in that horse-drawn carriage,I think I might have been fated to become their “master.”

Afterword

Thank you very much for picking up this book!

And to those of you who went so far as to purchase it, my sincerest gratitude!

Nice to meet you. I’m Hiro Ainana.

Even for those of you who read the web version of this novel, this is the firsttime I’ve introduced myself on paper, so I think this greeting still feelsappropriate.

This work, Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, began on March 3,2013, on the novel submission site Shousetsukan ni Narou (“Become aNovelist”) and continued updating daily for more than half a year, then switchedover to its current weekly pace.

I was fortunate enough to receive the support of many readers, whoencouraged me strongly with their comments as I continued the serialization;thanks to them, my story caught the attention of Fujimi Shobo, who approachedme with the unexpected proposal of making it into a book, and thus, this bookwas born.

When it came to adapting the web novel into a book, I was careful of threethings.

Firstly, I wanted to make this a book that would satisfy readers of the webversion.

It’s because of the web version’s readers that this book could be published. Itwould be terrible if they bought the book versions just to let them pile up.

Thus, rather than simply revising the web-novel version, I added more scenesthat would be especially enjoyable for readers of the original. Of course, itwouldn’t make sense if the book only appealed to those who’ve already read it,so for new readers these scenes will simply serve as foreshadowing.

I’m sure readers of the web version will end up wanting to scold both theprotagonist and writer.

So please, be sure to read the books instead of just piling them up somewhere.

The second goal was to make sure that new readers would enjoy the bookversion without having to read the web version.

This is obvious, but it wouldn’t make sense if you needed information from theweb version to read the first volume. So I added explanations for tropes fromBecome a Novelist that new readers wouldn’t understand and slimmed downother parts by cutting unnecessarily long exposition and overly verbose scenes.

My third goal was to make a book that people would want to reread afterfinishing it.

For those of you who enjoyed reading it the first time, please read it againsometime. I’m sure you’ll find lots of little pieces of foreshadowing that youmight have missed the first time around.

With these three things in mind, I worked hard on revising the web-novelversion, fixing passages poorly received and enhancing scenes that were popular.As a result, more than 70 percent of this book is new material. The other 30percent has been revised, too, so I think readers of the web version would behard-pressed to find a passage that’s completely unchanged.

There are also plenty of scenes that are entirely new, so I recommend thosewho aren’t sure about buying the book to give it a try.

I enjoyed working on this even through hard times, but the journey wasn’talways easy.

My plan had been to work on the book outside of the busy periods at my dayjob, but when my deadlines got extended at work, it ended up totallyoverlapping with the time I needed to do the finishing touches on this book.

I’m used to death marches at my day job, but this sort of crunch time was alittle different than usual, so I may or may not have gotten close to beingbeckoned into a parallel world myself.

But this won’t be any fun if I just continue talking about the hard times, so I’ll

leave it at that.

Finally, I want to thank my supervisor, Mr. H; Fujimi Shobo; shri, for drawingsuch wonderful illustrations; and everyone involved with the printing, binding,distribution, and so on!

And to those readers who have read all the way to the end: thank you somuch!

Let’s meet again in the next volume.

Hiro Ainana

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